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THE BOOK WAS
DRENCHED

UNIVER

OU 168093

VERSAL

RARY

Gift of

YALE UNIVERSITY

With the aid of the
ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
I949

THE ASIAN LEGACY
AND AMERICAN LIFE

The “Sea Letter” of the Empress of China , Inaugurating the China Trade in 1783-84. From
the Library of Congress.

THE ASIAN LEGACY
AND AMERICAN LIFE

ESSAYS

ARRANGED AND EDITED BY

ARTHUR E. CHRISTY

Illustrated

AN ASIA PRESS BOOK

Published in co-operation with
The East and West Association

THE JOHN DAY COMPANY • NEW YORK

This book is published simultaneously in the
Dominion of Canada by Longmans,
Green & Company, Toronto.

Government wartime restrictions on materials have
made it essential that the amount of paper used in
each book be reduced to a minimum. This volume is
printed on liphter paper than would have been used
before material limitations became necessary, and the
number of words on each page has been substantially
increased. The smaller bulk in no way indicates that
the text has been shortened.

The chapters “Our Agricultural Debt
to Asia” and “Living Religions and a
World Faith” have appeared in the
magazine Asia and the Americas.

Typography by Robert Josephy

MANU7ACTURSD IV TKK UVITtD IT ATS t 07 AXXftSCA

CONTENTS

FOREWORD vii

THE SENSE OF THE PAST I

ARTHUR E . CHRISTY , Professor of American
Literature , University of Illinois

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN MUSIC 56

CURT SACHS, Graduate School, New York Uni-
versity; Consultant to the Music Division, New
York Public Library

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN ART 70

LAURANCE P. ROBERTS, Director, The Brook-
lyn Museum

OUR AGRICULTURAL DEBT TO ASIA 84

WALTER T. SWINGLE, Collaborator, Bureau
of Plant Industry, United States Department of
Agriculture ; Consultant on Tropical Botany, Uni-
versity of Miami

TIES THAT BIND I I 5

STEPHEN B. L. PENROSE, JR., former Asso-
ciate Director, Near East College Association; and
OLIVER J. CALDWELL, former Secretary, As-
sociated Boards for Christian Colleges in China

THE ORIENT AND CONTEMPORARY POETRY 1 45

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER, poet , Pulitzer Prize

Winner

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN CONTEMPORARY

LITERATURE 1 75

WILLIAM YORK TINDALL, Department of
English and Comparative Literature, Columbia

University

LIVING RELIGIONS AND A WORLD FAITH 1 93

WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING, retired Chair-
man, Department of Philosophy, Harvard Univer-
sity

UNDERSTANDING AND REUNION: AN ORIENTAL

PERSPECTIVE 2 1 5

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY, Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

CONCLUSION: EAST AND WEST 2 3 I

PEARL S. BUCK, President, The East and West

Association

APPENDICES 236

ARTHUR E. CHRISTY

REFERENCE NOTES 268

INDEX 27O

Illustrations will be found in three sections following
page 7 6, page too, and page 244

FOREWORD

THE occasion for this book is the rise in recent years
of numerous governmental and private agencies sponsoring edu-
cational programs in intercultural relations. Enlightened states-
men and private citizens have at last recognized the fact that
isolationism is politically untenable, economically unsound, mor-
ally preposterous, and intellectually parochial. One of the most
urgent tasks of our day is to arouse interest in the life of foreign
peoples, and to dispel ignorance about the interdependence of all
the tribes of the human family.

There are three ways in which the study of foreign peoples
may be conducted. One is to study them in vacuo , with a sense
of complete detachment. Another is to explain the differences
between the world’s peoples and their cultures—a study which
unhappily leads to invidious contrasts and contributes little to
man’s sadly needed store of good will. A third is based on the
assumption that as long as the peoples of the earth have some
similarities, are blessed with intellectual curiosity, and sincerely
share a desire for something approaching the brotherhood of man,
mutually beneficial relations can be developed among them.
This final approach involves knowing other peoples intimately
and acquiring ability to see their interests as well as our own; but
above all, it emphasizes the process of cultural interchange.

The question “What can the East give the West?” has long
been asked, but few have sought to answer. Some scholars have
devoted themselves to the question in terms of European life and
civilization, and have sought in such works as the Oxford Legacy
series to show the exchange chiefly among peoples of the Medi-
terranean littoral. No concerted effort has yet been made to an-
swer the question in terms of American life. At no time in history
and in no area of the world has there been greater need of such

study than in America. The peoples of the New World, a fluid
mixture of races, look out upon the life of the earth from a conti-
nent whose coasts are washed by both of the great oceans, beyond
which, in ancestral Europe and ancient Asia, are the fountain-
heads of their traditions.

The legacies of Israel and Rome in Occidental civilization have
been described as the Jordan flowing into the Tiber. In more
recent times the Yangtze has flowed into the Thames and the
Ganges into the Mississippi. We do not minimize the basic con-
tributions of Israel, Greece, and Rome to Western civilization, or
the modem European traditions upon which American culture is
founded. But we recognize the fact that as the earth has shrunk
with the scientific conquest of distance, the world’s peoples no
longer live unto themselves and many Asiatic; peoples hitherto re-
mote from us have been brought into our intellectual orbit. In-
deed, they have in many ways, without many of us being aware
of it, influenced our sense of spiritual values and enriched our
workaday lives.

Paradoxically, the shrinking of our physical earth has also
meant the enlargement of each individual’s world. The neighbors
of modern man are no longer those who live in familiar parishes,
but those who inhabit the ends of the earth. No one can safely
predict, if a world civilization is ultimately to arise, whether it
will conform mainly to the standards of Europe. Spenglerian
prophets of doom for the West have thought too exclusively of
domination or decline. They have ignored the fact that a shuttle
of interacting influence is ceaselessly weaving the warp and the
weft of the world’s cultural fabric, while other forces are laying
foundations under man’s dream of universal brotherhood. It was
not sentimentalism that impelled Sisley Huddleston to write in
In My Time: “What we must have is a genuine cosmopolitanism,
and that means a growing body of really civilized individual men
and women in a number of countries, sufficiently enlightened to
. . . admire whatever is lovely and of good report in every coun-
try, and sufficiently numerous to leaven and color the thoughts
and feelings of the masses.”

This book is intended to be a modest contribution to knowl-
edge in a generally neglected field of Western cultural history.
That it is not exhaustive and does not presume even to survey

viii

many important problems in the history of Oriental-Occidental
relations must be emphasized. Its stress is mainly upon processes
and values which politicians and economists generally ignore. The
contributors are officials and scholars who have been asked to
agree upon only one principle, namely, that intercultural ex-
change involves more than the commodities or bric-a-brac which
cross the oceans on the bottoms of ships, the records compiled by
attaches in consular offices overseas, and trade treaties favored by
chambers of commerce. That this emphasis needs to be made in
American relations with Asiatic peoples cannot be too strongly
stated, if we are ever to be fully absolved from the charge of
being essentially a materialistic people or curious about the pic-
turesque details of foreign life alone.

The emphasis of the book is, furthermore, on contemporary
American life, on living issues. The past has not been ignored,
however, since historical perspective is needed; and European
backgrounds have been emphasized, since what America owes to
Asia in many instances came indirectly through our European
relations. Following the editor’s contribution, the chapters are
arranged in turn to present a varied sense of such vital details of
our debt to Asia as the fruits and cereals which have become sta-
ples in the economy of American life, the social institutions and
the arts which are the chief channels of cultural interchange, and
the religious and philosophical issues implicit in the relations be-
tween the cultures of the world’s hemispheres. Finally, Dr. Coom-
araswamy contributes to the series as a citizen of the world, an
Oriental by birth and an Occidental in training and professional
life, stating what seem to him the crucial needs and issues.

Readers will discover much information hitherto inaccessible.
But the contributors while pointing out trees have also described
forests. Skilled at taking pains, they have not forgotten for what
purpose alone research and the scholar’s cares are worth the effort,
and they have not neglected either the broad view or the deeper
understanding and larger interrelations. Since each contributor
worked independently, free to select his own facts and draw his
own conclusions, the separate chapters reflect individual points of
view arrived at through long years of observation, study, and per-
sonal experience. The cumulative result is a rich assortment of
facts, stimulating ideas, and approaches to one of the most vital

issues in international life today. The editor is confident that both
the general and the learned critic will realize that the purpose is
not rhetorical effect but the awakening of the American public
to a comprehensive view of all that is involved in our relations
with non-European peoples.

Among the many satisfactions, encouragement, and help the
editor has received in his work, his chief debt is to the interna-
tionally known authorities who have contributed to the pages
which follow. To speak of their eminence is unnecessary for
those who know their work. For those unacquainted with it, the
chief facts of interest to the reader have been noted on the
contents page. The editor is confident that men who share a
common interest and are willing to spend themselves for inter-
national understanding cannot fail to find mutual satisfaction in
the advancement of the cause. Among collaborators, therefore,
the silence of simple pleasure at tasks completed contains a deeper
note of satisfaction and gratitude than can be conveyed by words
for the public eye. To Pearl S. Buck, founder of the East and
West Association, the editor tenders his thanks for the gracious
manner in which his first proposal for this book was received and
for the chapter which enriches its pages. Finally, to the John Si-
mon Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of
Learned Societies the editor is under debt for encouragement and
aid in the development of the field of study which this book rep-
resents and of which it is a hint of work in progress. Representa-
tive materials quarried from the records of the East India trade
in European and American archives are included in the opening
chapter or kenneled in an innocuous appendix. Since most of
the facts are either new or from unpublished records, specialists
may find them informative; and the general public, for whom this
book is intended, may be introduced through them to the history
of the cultural discovery of the Orient.

Arthur E. Christy

February /,

THE ASIAN LEGACY
AND AMERICAN LIFE

Arthur E. Christy

THE SENSE OF THE PAST

IF IT is true, as Savigny said, that history is the only
way to attain a knowledge of one’s condition, a sense of the past
is needed in the conduct of cultural relations between European
and Asiatic peoples. Indeed the civilization of our modern world
is in many ways a product of the interchange between the east-
ern and western hemispheres; and there are peculiar reasons why
the American manifestations of the reciprocal contacts are par-
ticularly worthy of study. The New World, from the time of
Columbus, has stood midway between Europe and Asia. It is the
laboratory in which many values are tested, the field in which
everything from Oriental flora and fauna to exotic modes of life
and thought is being domesticated. In John Buchan’s Pilgrim's
Way appear pertinent comments on the antiquarian habit of mind
which belittles the present and looks backward. It is a vicious
business, he wrote, to look backward unless the feet are set stead-
fastly on the forward road. Change, inevitable with the passing
generations, must be welcomed. Open and flexible minds will rec-
ognize the need of transformation and set themselves to appre-
hend new conditions. But they will also recognize that the past
is “the matrix of present and future, whose potency takes many
forms but is not diminished.” They will cherish it scrupulously,
labor to read its lessons, and, realizing fully that “in the cycle to
which we belong we can see only a fraction of the curve,” will
appraise it properly by looking both ahead and backward a few
centuries to its beginning.

The vastness of our subject precludes a detailed historical dis-
cussion of the Occidental debt to the Orient. Intercourse began

in Graeco-Roman times, and it included everything from the
commodities of the early caravan trade to modern circus freaks
and chinaware, from the art of printing to the mariner’s compass,
from gunpowder to the game of chess, from Arabic mathematics
and science to the Aristotelianism which Averroes and Avicenna
transmitted to the thinkers of the European Renaissance, from
Hindu fables to theories of art, from loan-words in our vocabu-
laries to materia medica , from wallpaper to theosophies. The his-
torian might also consider the beginnings of all “comparative”
studies, including linguistics and religion; and if he elects to con-
sider the most modern of all problems, he would delve, as has
C. G. Jung, into the psychology of the unconscious in the light
of the ancient scriptures of the East.

The question of the Occidental debt to the Orient is thus of
the greatest significance. The vital issues which it raises for the fu-
ture were suggested by the Irish poet George Russell (AE) in
The Living Torch. “If Europe,” he wrote, “is to have a new ren-
aissance comparable with that which came from the wedding of
Christianity with the Greek and Latin culture it must, I think,
come from a second wedding of Christianity with the culture of
the East.” Romain Rolland in his Prophets of the New India
raised a somewhat analogous question as he viewed American life.
“It would be a matter of deep interest to know exactly how far
the American spirit had been impregnated, directly or indirectly,
by the infiltration of Hindu thought during the nineteenth cen-
tury,” he wrote, “for there can be no doubt that it has contributed
to the strange moral and religious mentality of the United States.
. . . It is . . . a psychological problem of the first order, inti-
mately connected with the history of our civilization.”

For a brief survey, we do well to begin with the opening up of
the world by Columbus and Vasco da Gama and to restrict our-
selves to a few of the purely intellectual consequences. The first
fact to be noted about the voyagers of the late fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries is that they opened the way to self-discovery no
less than to unknown lands ripe for economic exploitation. They
disclosed to Europeans as never before their ignorance, their pov-
erty, and their limited intellectual horizons. At first they appear
to have been most impressed by the wealth of the Indies, and the
flora and fauna of Oceania and the New World. The Occidental

mind, even that of Western Europe, was adjusted to a time when
the Mediterranean was the center of civilization. Centuries were
to pass before the historical record of all that the various branches
of the human family had accomplished and thought were to be
unfolded. The discoveries began at a time when almost all Eu-
ropeans regarded the Pope as God’s vicar over all the known
races of mankind. The record, furthermore, must be viewed
against a background of momentous changes in the intellectual
life of Europe itself. It embraces all that Occidental peoples have
found overseas, domesticated in their homelands, learned about
foreign ethical and political systems, sought to formulate for the
conduct of their own lives, and finally, are studying with the
critical apparatus of modern scholarship.

In the early pages of such a record, wild guesses, errors, and
misconceptions are to be expected. But to ignore or minimize the
work of the early explorers of Oriental culture is ill-advised. One
does well to remember that at first:

Geographers in Afric maps

Make savage pictures fill their gaps,

And o’er inhabitable downs
Place elephants instead of towns.

Ignorance of the physical world before arduous and dangerous
exploration led to the inner secrets of unknown continents has
never been regarded as a mark of weakness in the European intel-
lect. Similar ignorance of the inner spirit or meaning of foreign
cultures cannot be fairly regarded as a mark of dullness of mind
and insensitivity of soul. Marlowe in Tamburlaine the Great put
into the mouth of his dying hero words which clearly epitomize
the spirit of the first European explorers:

Give me a map; then let me see how much
Is left for me to conquer all the world,

That these, my boys, may finish all my wants.

Look here, my boys; see what a world of ground
Lies westward from the midst of Cancer’s line,
Unto the rising of this earthly globe;

Whereas the sun, declining from our sight,

Begins the day with our Antipodes!

And I shall die, and this unconquered?

Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing also suggested what
such exploration did to the European imagination: “I will go on
the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to
send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest
inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch
you a hair off the great Cham’s beard. . .

Clearly the Europeans who opened up the world were avid for
knowledge. While many were lamentably intent on economic
exploitation of foreign peoples and lands, not a small number val-
ued more the cultural legacies slowly and simultaneously made
known.

The persistent ignoring by cultural historians of the Oriental
contribution to the imaginative and spiritual life of Europe stems
of course from their sense of values and their home-keeping
tendencies. It rises no less from the sentiment that the record con-
sists chiefly of manifestations of credulity and ignorance. Such
manifestations are, nevertheless, useful suggestions of the realms
of human experience in which Orientals and Occidentals will in
time discover common ground and realize what they may con-
tribute to each other. For perspective, one may turn to the dawn
of modern European history and illustrate through a book, a
writer, and a saints’ legend, the varying ways in which European
thought, literature, and institutions, have been influenced from
abroad.

It is a little known but surprising fact that the first book printed
in England, entitled the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers
and published by William Caxton in 1477, was basically Oriental
and reflected the centuries-old European debt to Indian folklore
and Arabic wisdom literature. The first compiler, according to the
editor of the version published in 1941 by the Early English Text
Society, was Abu’l Wefa Mubeschschir ben Fatik, an Arab phi-
losopher living in Damascus probably about 1053 A-D* No ques-
tion in the history of Oriental-Occidental cultural relations is
more intriguing than the origin of the popular sentiment that the
East is the treasureJiouse of wisdom, of profound insights, and of

occult knowledge. The celebrated Dictes may be taken as sig-
nificant evidence of this belief in the literature of Western Eu-
rope.

Behind the book is a very complex collection of sources which
stem through Arabic and Greek versions of fables, parables, and
moral apologues migrating westward from India, of Alexandrine
Neo-Platonism, and of the work of Arab philosophers who served
as mediators in the intellectual life of Mediterranean peoples. The
work on which Caxton based his text appears to have been com-
piled in Latin about 1350. It was translated into French in 1410,
and the English version was made by Anthony Woodville, Earl
Rivers, tutor to the youthful Prince of Wales, who thought it
“full necessary to my said lord the understanding thereof.” The
time was the tumultuous period of the Wars of the Roses, when
the partisans of Edward IV sought refuge at the court of Charles
the Bold of Burgundy. Caxton had served as “Governor of the
English Nation abroad,” that is, as business agent for the Mer-
chant Adventurers, and had been able to render frequent aid to
his expatriated countrymen, who with him found ample oppor-
tunity to acquaint themselves with Oriental fables and proverbs
transmitted from Moorish Spain into France. They were doubt-
less also introduced to Latin collections of Oriental lore circulat-
ing on the Continent. Under these circumstances, it was not by
accident that Caxton’s first book should be representative of the
literature which had caught the attention of men who lived in
days when the changes and chances of life were unpredictable,
and when on all sides individuals sought stability. The popularity
of the Dictes in England is indicated by the fact that Caxton him-
self brought out three editions. Its title is perhaps deceptive, for it
was in no sense an exposition of Oriental philosophy. On the con-
trary, it contained numerous pleasant stories for the seasoning of
conversation, many quotable maxims or proverbial sayings such
as one finds appended to iEsopic or Buddhist tales, and parables
which are reminiscent of the Apocrypha. This curious and his-
torically significant book marks the beginnings in English publish-
ing of hundreds of volumes which have presented to Western
readers the distillation of ages of human experience in the East.
It marks the beginning also of that vague exoticism which has
never ceased to be an element in our popular literature. In every

subsequent generation some writer of note has sought to satisfy
the demands of his contemporaries for the exotic.

Sir Thomas North, the translator of Plutarch and Marcus
Aurelius, is an excellent example. In 1570 he published The Morall
Philosophic of Doniy a book whose title unfortunately fails to
suggest its Oriental origin. North used for his translation the
Italian work of Antonio Francesco Doni, a journalist of Florence
whose interest was in the ancient fabulists of the East and who,
like Boccaccio, wove many an oriental tale into the popular nov -
elle of his time. The Morall Philosophie is an English version of an
Italian adaptation of the Pehlevi version of original Indian col-
lections of Buddhist birth-stories and moral apologues. Here is
clear indication of the popularity of such stories in the West and
of the knotty bibliographical problems involved in tracing their
origin, various adaptations, and extensive diffusion. The Oriental
materials in such collections as the popular Gesta Romanorum and
Seven Wise Masters of the Middle Ages reflect the same interest.
In the East had been discovered a storehouse of narrative and
maxims which contributed to the exempla of monkish preachers,
to the tales of a writer as great as Chaucer, and to later Eliza-
bethan dramatists. But North’s Morall Philosophie was more than
a collection of incident useful for later writers in the construction
of plays and tales. It came from the hand of a great English styl-
ist, who possessed the art of saying great things simply, and who
contributed richly to the development of Tudor prose. One is
tempted to extensive quotation, no less than to an exposition of
the ways in which Doni’s Italian vivacity tempered the Oriental
gravity of the originals. But brief lines from the apostrophe “To
the Reader” will suffice to indicate its foreign source and char-
acter:

Of wordes and of examples is a sundrie sort of speache

One selfe same thing to mindes of men in sundrie wise
they teache.

Wordes teach but those that understande the language
that they heare:

But things, to men of sundrie speache, examples make
appeare.

So larger is the speache of beasts, though mens more cer-
taine bee:

But yet so larger as conceyte is able them to see.

Such largenesse yet at length to bring to certaine use and
plane,

God gaue such grace to beasts, that they should Indian
speach attaine.

And then they learnde Italian tongue, and now at length
they can,

By help of North, speake English well to euery English
man.

It is customary to illustrate the appeal of the Orient to the Eu-
ropean imagination in the Middle Ages by the popular travel
books and diaries of Marco Polo and his contemporaries. There
can be doubt neither of the stimulus of such works, nor of the
fact that the fictitious Travels of Sir John Mandeville owed its
being to the current demand for more works like those of the
monks and merchants who on overland journeys to Cathay ob-
served the wealth of unknown peoples and reported the wonders
they had seen. But the legend of Barlaam and Josaphaty with vari-
ants in Greek, Latin, French, German, Swedish, Dutch, and even
Icelandic, reveals in a different fashion what the European mind
wished to believe and could do with a few meager facts. The
legend has been called “the first religious romance published in a
Western language.” It contains much of the life of Buddha him-
self, birth stories from the Buddhist canon, tales from the Pan -
chatantra and other Oriental myths, combined with Christian
traditions. Whatever the version by which it entered the Western
world, beginning with a Sanskrit prototype and passing from
Pchlevi to Arabic to Georgian to Greek and finally into many
other European forms, the moral tone of the legend pleased Eu-
ropeans. It appears in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry and also in
the Gesta Romanorum . And of all unexpected results—it led to
the canonization of its hero, Buddha, as a saint of Rome and By-
zantium.

The gist of the story can be briefly told. Christian teaching had
found its way into the East, and many converts had been made
in the dominions of an Indian king. To this king a son was born,
at whose birthday feast Chaldaean oracles prophesied that the in-
fant would grow in wisdom, abandon the religion of his fathers,

and embrace the true faith. The distressed father tried to keep
his son ignorant of the miseries of the world, built for him de-
lightful palaces, surrounded him with all that was beautiful, and,
as in the legendary life of Buddha himself, gave instructions that
the youth should never be shown sickness, old age, and death. A
Christian hermit gained access to the young prince and instructed
him in Christian doctrines. The prince, converted and baptized,
resolved to give up all his wealth and pleasures. In some versions
he even converted his own father and many of his subjects.
Eventually he followed his teacher into the desert, became a her-
mit, and died in the true faith, a Christian saint. Within the frame
of this simple tale, there was offered opportunity for storytellers
to interweave innumerable parables and Oriental apologues, es-
pecially at the debates before the king’s court on the merits of the
various religions of the time which preceded the prince’s renunci-
ation of the world. In these disputations one may find evidence
of an early attempt at “comparative” religion, although the real
object of the book was manifestly a simple exposition of the prin-
cipal doctrines of the Christian faith.

Many scholars besides T. W. ‘Rhys Davids in his work on
Buddhist Birth-Stories have examined the records which pertain
to the canonization of Buddha as St. Josaphat. Barlaam, the Chris-
tian hermit of the story, need not concern us here. What is sig-
nificant is that the legend of the converted Indian prince became
widely accepted as authentic, and his name was included in vari-
ous local lists of deceased saints and martyrs which were recited
in the so-called Canon of the Mass. Religious men of local celeb-
rity were often included for that purpose in the local lists or
Diptychs, and their names in time became honored throughout
Christendom. The confessors and martyrs thus honored in the
‘Canon’ were in that sense said to have been canonized. For a
long time local ecclesiastics were permitted to insert such names
in their Diptychs. After 1170 Pope Alexander III decreed that
the power of canonization, so far as the Roman Church was con-
cerned, would be confined to the Pope himself. With the passing
centuries the names in various martyrologies were thus no longer
inserted in the Canon but were repeated in the part of the service
called the ‘Prime,’ although the term ‘canonized’ was still applied
to the holy men mentioned in them. Finally, as the increasing

number of martyrologies led to confusion and raised doubts about
the exclusive power of the Pope to canonize, in 1585-90 Cardinal
Baronius drew up a Marty rologium which was to be used
throughout the Western Church. In it were included not only the
saints canonized at Rome but also those already canonized else-
where who were then recognized by the Pope and the College
of Rites as saints of the Catholic Church of Christ. Included in
this list were “The holy Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, of India,
on the borders of Persia, whose wonderful acts Saint John of
Damascus has described.”

Behind this story of the Christian canonization of Buddha lie
two facts. The first is the legend itself, so impressive in its ac-
count of the conversion of the Oriental prince that its authen-
ticity was not questioned and the hero became a saint. The second
factor involves early linguistic confusion of names. The name
Ioasaph is derived from Bodhisattva, the title of one destined to
attain the dignity of a buddha. In Arabic Bodhisattva became
Bodasaph. Later, since Arabic B and Y differ only by a single dia-
critical point under the character, Bodasaph was misread as
Iodasaph in Georgian and Ioasaph in Greek. These names were
later rendered by Western European adapters of the legend into
the more familiar Josaphat or Jehoshaphat.

The amazing vitality and adaptability of Oriental myth, legend,
and wisdom-literature are also clearly suggested by the bare
facts noted about the work of Caxton and North. The synthetic
character of Christianity itself is likewise indicated in the saints'
legend of Buddha. These popular signs of ‘orientalism’ in Medie-
val Europe are a meager suggestion that the East had contributed
to its thought and imagination before the opening of the sea route
around the Cape of Good Hope. As navigators and merchant
mariners in increasing numbers returned from far voyages with
the wealth of the Indies in their galleons to enrich the material
civilization of Western Europe, they may have been ignorant
of the significance of the mystery cults of the eastern Mediter-
ranean world and of the extent to which Arab philosophers and
Neo-Platonists had considered the ancient philosophies of the
East. But they no less represented a cultural tradition that had
long been willing to accommodate itself to new modes of
thought, and a credulous public whose curiosity had been awak-

ened. In the following centuries which have been labeled the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and which form the prelude
to contemporary European and American thought, some fearful
and a few amazing things were to be done by Europeans with the
unfolding knowledge about Oriental peoples and their ways of
life.

After the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama in 1492
and 1498, nearly a century and a half passed before Europeans
organized anything like systematic study of the “rarities” of the
Indies, which consisted chiefly of unknown flora and fauna, and
of facts about foreign peoples, their traits, institutions, racial
ideals, and religious beliefs. Astronomers, however, soon sailed
with the mariners for the purpose of studying eclipses in distant
regions, and scientists began to reconsider traditional European
knowledge in the light of new facts. Aristotle's system of natural
history, it was discovered, accommodated itself inadequately to
new specimens of plants and animals found in other areas of the
world and hitherto unknown to Europe. Clearly, the progress of
Renaissance science was influenced by Eastern discovery.

This scientific interest soon crystallized into organized societies.
As early as 1572 a Society of Antiquaries was formed in London
and continued until it was dissolved by James I. A Royal Acad-
emy was projected in 1616-17; and in 1645 a group of English in-
tellectuals, weary of political and religious turmoil, began weekly
meetings in Gresham College. From this informal group, called
by Sir Robert Boyle the “invisible College,” there eventually
grew the Royal Society of London, which was chartered by the
King on April 22, 1662. On the Continent similar societies sprang
up. In 1666 the French Academy of Science was projected. The
extant records of such societies show that their attention was not
directed to European antiquities alone.

How systematic and far-reaching were the efforts of the Eng-
lish Royal Society to gather new knowledge regarding the over-
seas world and its inhabitants may be judged from the “Directions
for Sea-men, bound for far Voyages,” published in its Philosophi-
cal Transactions on January 8, 1666. In that document appears
the following statement:

It being the Design of the R. Society , for the better attain-
ing of the End of their Institution, to study Nature rather
than Books, and from the Observations, made of the Phe-
nomena and Effects she presents, to compose a History of
Her, as may hereafter serve to build a solid and Useful Phi-
losophy upon; They have from time to time given order to
several of their Members to draw up both Inquiries of things
Observable in forrain Countries, and Directions for the Par-
ticulars, they desire chiefly to be informed about . . . and
set down some Directions for Sea-men going into the East &
West Indies, the better to capacitate them for making such
observations abroad.

Seamen were instructed “to keep an exact Diary, delivering at
their return a fair Copy thereof to the Lord High Admiral,” an-
other to the Duke of York, and a third to the Royal Society it-
self. The seamen were also to prepare careful accounts “of the
Inhabitants themselves, both Natives and Strangers,” and to en-
quire “about Traditions concerning all particular things, relating
to that Country” and “regarding Learning or Skill in the An-
swerer” The Society asserted that the instructions were “thought
fit to be publisht, that the Inquisitive and Curious, might, by such
Assistance be invited not to delay their searches of matters, that
are so highly conducive to the improvement of True Philosophy ,
and the well fare of Mankind”

As late as 1704, in ChurchilPs Colie ction of Voyages appeared
an “Introductory Discourse” in which the writer “set down some
general Rules which may concern all Travellers to observe.” The
suggestions clearly reveal the wealth of material which those who
conscientiously observed the rules were to bring home for study:

They are in the first place to consider, that they do not
go into other Countries to pass through them, and divert
themselves with the present sight of such Curiosities as they
meet with. ... If they will make an advantage of their
Trouble and Cost, they must not pass through a Country as
if they carried an Express, but make a reasonable stay at all
places where there are Antiquities, or any Rarities to be ob-
served; and not to think that because others have writ on
that ’Subject, there is no more to be said. . . . Let them

1 1

therefore always have a Table-Book at hand to set down
every thing worth remembering, and then at night more
methodically transcribe the Notes they have taken in the
day. The principal Heads by which to regulate their Ob-
servations are these, Climate, Government, Power, Places of
Strength, Cities of note, Religion, Language, Coins, Trade,
Manufactures, Wealth, Universities, Antiquities, Libraries,
Collections of Rarities, Arts and Artists, Publick Structures,
Roads, Bridges, Woods, Mountains, Customs, Habits, Laws,
Privileges, strange Adventures, surprising Accidents, Rarities
both natural and artificial, the Soil, Plants, Animals, and
whatsoever may be curious, diverting, or Profitable.

These deliberate efforts to secure scientific data regarding for-
eign countries and peoples had, however, in a way been antici-
pated by the first independent compilers of cosmographies and
universal histories. In 1544 Sebastian Munster published at Basel
his Cosmographia Universalis , in which he surprised later cartog-
raphers by his desire to secure the latest knowledge on the his-
tory, ethnography, and geography of the world. Richard Eden’s
English translation of this book appeared in 1553. More than two
decades earlier a Dutchman, Joannes Boemus, published in Latin,
presumably at Antwerp in 1520, The Fardle of Facions which
was translated by William Watreman for London publication in
1555 and contained “the aunciente maners, customes, and Lawes,
of the peoples enhabiting the two partes of the earth, called Af-
fricke and Asie.” This work is described by Edward Godfrey
Cox in his copious Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel
as “the first scientific approach to ethnology.” Several hundred
titles are included in Cox’s two-volume compilation of cos-
mographies and travel books. Hakluyt and Purchas were but
two of a tribe of compilers who continued their work well into
the eighteenth century, collecting the journals of travelers over-
seas and publishing them as “curious and entertaining” for an avid
public. From these works other compilers set about the task of
producing early encyclopedias with such titles as The World
4 Displayed , The Present State of the Universe , and The Travel-
lour's Guide and Historian's Faithful Companion .

In the light of these facts it is not historically presumptuous to

consider anew the amazing revival of utopian literature. The long
interval between Plato’s Republic and St. Augustine’s City of
God is marked by an amazing dearth of utopian literature. The
period following the appearance of the Latin version of More’s
Utopia in 1516, on the other hand, is a distinct contrast. Johann
Valentin Andreae produced his Christianopolis in 1619; Francis
Bacon the New Atlantis in 1627, Tomasso Campanella the City
of the Sun in 1637, and James Harrington the Oceania in 1656.
Many explanations may be offered for the shift in man’s longing
from the heavenly utopia of the Middle Ages to the earthly para-
dise of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. To find one ex-
planation in the startling discoveries of contrasts between
European society and that of overseas peoples, with their differ-
ing scales of value and 'modes of thought, is not to overreach the
evidence.

From the beginning of the European’s direct contact with civ-
ilized Orientals there grew within him a contrasting sense of his
own poverty, and even of his social needs and inadequacies. As-
tonished by the amazing new facts constantly presented by
returning voyagers, European thinkers sensed their own provin-
cialism and the artificiality of their society. In the New World
were the Amerindians who apparently lived in freedom, without
extreme restrictions of law, blessed with nature’s bounties, often
disdainful of gold for its own sake, in Edenic conditions conjec-
tured to be original with man’s first life on earth. In the Orient
were highly civilized peoples who restricted Europeans to a few
trading posts on the coastal fringes of their countries and con-
stantly demonstrated amazing powers of cultural resistance, ap-
parently preferring their own ways of life and thought to those
of the white visitors.

It would be preposterous to assert that significant “orientalism”
is to be found in More’s Utopia and Bacon’s New Atlantis. But it
is historically accurate to place them in the intellectual context
of a time when an exotic dream had seized the European imagina-
tion. Few utopian writers of the Renaissance had any scientifically
accurate information about the life of Oriental peoples. On the
other hand, consider the unequivocal opening sentence of the
New Atlantis: “We sailed from Peru, where we had continued
for the space of one whole year, for China and Japan, by the

South Sea, taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had
good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months
space and more.” Researchers have suggested Bacon’s probable
debt to William Adams’s letters and reports from Japan to the
English East India Company, and have argued that a considerable
part of the narrative in Bacon’s book is based on actual travel
records. More’s Utopia , furthermore, had in its character Raphael
Hythloday a sunburned sailor-philosopher who had sailed the
seas and seen for himself the life of foreign lands. Of More’s debt
to Vespucci’s Journals there is scant doubt.

The chief themes of the utopian books were of course basically
European: the tyranny of princes, the problems of private prop-
erty, social equality, class distinctions, education, and the advance-
ment of science. But many of the themes were studied in the
light of social systems prevailing abroad. The significance of the
island “utopias” of the Renaissance is that they marked the first
stage, both in their setting in Oceania and in their intellectual
outlook, of the progressive tendency of Europeans to think of
their own institutions and traditional modes of thought and life
in a world context.

Utopian literature was heavily didactic and was not widely
read. It was therefore inevitable that from the excitement of the
times there should also come another genre of literature, some-
what similar in purpose but wider in appeal. The popularity of
authentic travel books inevitably suggested to stay-at-home Lon-
doners and Parisians the writing of “imaginary” voyages, of
which Swift’s Gulliver is a classic example. “Philosophic” voy-
ages, distinguished from the imaginary type chiefly in academic
terms, also appeared. Armchair travelers have for centuries de-
lighted to inform their contemporaries about the maladjustments
of the times and the superior ways in which the business of life
is conducted abroad. Thus, like the greater utopian writers, many
lesser scribblers sought to sugar-coat panaceas for social ills by
offering their work in the guise of a popular travel book. Such
literature may be likened to the “problem” novels of modern
propaganda. They were intended for instruction and as such rep-
resented a sophisticated literature, at their worst merely imagi-
native potboilers, at their best a new medium of social satire. The
expository and historical studies of the literature which have come

from the pens of scholars like William A. Eddy, Geoffrey At-
kinson, and Philip Babcock Gove will offer the interested reader
amazing facts regarding the far-reaching excursions of the “imag-
inary” voyagers. The significance of their work lies in the reva-
lation of the gradual diffusion of knowledge, the suggestion of
place of the Orient in the popular consciousness, and indication
of the extent to which writers exploited the current interest.

The opinion of a trustworthy observer of the time may suggest
both the popularity of travel literature and its influence. Anthony
Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, published in 17 n
his Characteristic ks of Men , Manners, Opinions , Times , an il-
luminating survey of the taste and fashions of his generation. He
noted the audience for which travelers wrote and editors com-
piled: “Our relish or taste must of necessity grow barbarous,
whilst barbarian customs, savage manners, Indian wars, and won-
ders of terra incognita, employ our leisure hours and are the chief
materials to furnish out a library.” He added, not too sympa-
thetically: “These are in our present days what books of chivalry
were in those of our forefathers. I know not what faith our an-
cestors may have had in the stories of their giants, their dragons,
and St. Georges. But for our faith indeed, as well as our taste in
this other way of reading, I must confess I cannot consider it
without astonishment.” Shaftesbury also indicated that the the-
osophies and Orient-inspired cults of contemporary Europe and
America began more than two centuries ago. “It must certainly
be something else than incredulity,” wrote the amazed and ob-
servant Earl, “which fashions the taste and judgment of many
gentlemen whom we hear censured as atheists, for attempting to
philosophize after a newer manner than any known of late. . . .
I can produce many anathematized authors who, if they want a
true Israelitish faith, can make amends by a Chinese or Indian
one. If they are short in Syria or the Palestine, they have their
full measure in America or Japan. . . . Though Christian mira-
cles may not so well satisfy them, they dwell with the highest
contentment on the prodigies of Moorish and Pagan countries.”

Shaftesbury’s strictures on the taste of his contemporaries must
be considered in the light of the current democratization of
knowledge and the heady effects of stimulating ideas and sugges-
tions from abroad. The scholasticism of earlier generations had

created a learned caste and largely limited the intellectual life of
Europe to an aristocracy. But after 1500 the world with all its
wonders was slowly unfolded before every mentally awake man,
however scant his education. Experimental science, as represented
by the Royal Society, which had sought the aid of uneducated
mariners who knew no Latin and made their reports in the ver-
nacular, was no longer restricted to the ancient seats of learning.
Once the topics and modes of speculation and contemplation had
been removed from everyday subjects. Now the gradual exten-
sion of geographical knowledge compelled a shift to other ob-
jects of thought. It is not surprising that the common man of
Shaftesbury’s day had not the poise and balanced knowledge
which would deter him from philosophizing “after a newer man-
ner than any known of late.”

It is from the books read by such men, no less than in the rec-
ords of scientific societies devoted to the gathering of accurate
and useful knowledge, that the beginnings of Oriental-Occidental
cultural relations must be traced. Two questions dominated the
thought of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The first was
the true character of man and the secret of social felicity. The
second involved the relation between traditional modes of
thought and the new scientific temper. Both were deeply affected
by the exploratory spirit of the times. Neither religion nor social
dogma had immunity against change. To the medieval records
and systems of thought there had been added an immeasurably
extended store of useful knowledge by observers who, while not
unwilling to embroider a tale in the telling, had much to gain by
being accurate. The “virtuosi” of the Renaissance were laying the
foundations of methodical investigation and of all branches of
modern comparative studies.

The idealization of China was the first outstanding result of the
impact of the Orient upon the European imagination. There had
been previous Oriental “vogues” in the minor arts, in personal
costume, and even in architecture. Samuel C. Chew’s illuminating
study, The Crescent and the Rose , an historical exposition of the
relations between Islam and England during the Renaissance,

Architectural Chinoiserie. From Paul Decker, Chinese Architec-
ture, Civil and Ornamental, London, 1759.

clearly indicates that even though Mohammed was widely con-
sidered an impostor and the centuries-old struggle with the infidel
had not been forgotten, osmosis had long been active between
Moorish and Christian civilizations when they met. But none of
its consequences compares in import with the results of the “dis-
covery” of Confucius and China.

The reason may not be far to seek. There has always been a
close relation between the dominant mood of a time, the themes
of its literature, and the trends of its speculative thought. No fact
stands out more clearly before the reader of travel-utopian litera-
ture and the writings of Europeans viewing mankind “from China
to Peru” than the growing concept of the Noble Savage. Rous-
seau formulated the idea of the unspoiled child of nature. In the
forests of the New World and on the islands of Oceania, explor-
ers discovered this child of nature, living by instincts uncorrupted
by arbitrary social codes, presumably expressing in his songs
Edenic sentiments and in his religion a morality untouched by
knavish priests. He became a stock idea of poets who had never
seen an Amerindian. The concept of the Noble Sage, with Con-
fucius as a model, while not so widely discussed was no less im-
pressive, however.

Whether the Noble Sage or the Noble Savage is the more im-
portant concept in the literary and intellectual history of the
eighteenth century is an unprofitable issue to discuss. The fact is
that both concepts existed— and were complementary. If the
Noble Savage had more songs inscribed in his honor by poets, the
Noble Sage was more exhaustively studied, dignified by debate,
and idealized by thoughtful men. The reason can be readily
stated. China had a great literature which was gradually being
made known; the primitive natives of Oceania and America had
no books. China had one of the oldest civilizations of the world,
founded upon an ethic and a political philosophy which could be
studied both in its textual precedents and in its current opera-
tion. The noble savages were simply children of nature offering
in comparison meager materials for study save to the European
poet whose romantic sentimentalism was awakened by dreams of
uninhibited love and freedom from social restraint. Confucius
was to become the idol of philosophers who seriously pondered

a social order founded upon the Deistic concepts of natural good-
ness, natural morality, and natural religion.

The neo-classical dictum that “Nature is everywhere the same”
had led to the basic assumption that Reason is identical in all men
and that in all parts of the world are to be found the truths by
which mankind should live. As early as 1594 Bishop Hooker had
written in his Ecclesiastical Polity: “The general and perpetual
voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For that which
all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have
taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his
instrument.” This proposition was widely accepted both by scho-
lastic philosophers and by the more rationalistic orthodox divines.
Some agreed that all men shared the light that lighteth everyman
coming into the world, but insisted that the light of Nature needed
in addition the Gospel for a candlestick. Despite shadings of dif-
ference in the interpretations of Hooker’s principle, however, it
was widely agreed that the true principles of morality are
throughout human nature the same in kind, though different in
degree, according to the organization of various minds which
had been perverted by prejudice and false associations. By the
right analysis of human records the world over, particularly of
those standards of taste and conduct which at all times revealed
the uncorrupted feelings of men, it was assumed there would be
discovered a universal and true principle for the conduct of life.
There thus developed during the Enlightenment an appeal to the
“Consensus Gentium” in addition to the appeal to Reason.

Charles Blount’s Oracles of Reason , 1693, may be taken as an
epitome of Deistic thought, although there were differences and
shadings of opinion among its professors. The fundamental tenet
of the system appears to have been that: “Natural Religion is the
Belief we have of an eternal intellectual Being, and of the duty
which we owe him, manifested to us by our Reason, without
Revelation or positive Law.” Crucial in the controversies of the
Deists with the orthodox divines was the question of the ade-
quacy of natural religion to save the heathen who are ignorant of
the Christian revelation and who merely “live up to the height of
their natural Reason or Religion.” Upon such questions Blount
wrote: “I answer; This is to dive too far in God’s secrets, to con-
clude them all damned in all Ages, to whom that revealed Light

came not. The Apostle says, They shall be judged by the Law of
Nature . . . In sum, the Deists insisted that God had struck the
idea of himself upon the human mind in all times and places.
Morality certainly, even religion itself some argued, could be-
come a positive science if men would give their effort to ascer-
taining its universal manifestations.

The geographical range and the purpose of deistic speculation
are suggested in a pamphlet published by Thomas Chubb in 1732
which reveals enough of the argument in its full-length title:

The Sufficiency of Reason in Matters of Religion, far-
ther Considered. Wherein is Shewn, That Reason , when
carefully used and followed, is to everyman, who is an-
swerable to God for his actions, under any or all the most
disadvantageous circumstances he can possibly fall into,
whether he resides in Chinay or at the Cape of Good Hope ,
a sufficient guide in matters of religiop; that is, it is suffi-
cient to guide him to God’s favor, and the happiness of
another World.

There was ample opposition to Deism; and among its professors
there were limitations to the use actually made of available
knowledge about a “religio generis humani.” Dean Swift, for
example, said that the system contained “nothing which could not
presently be comprehended by the weakest noodle.”

Despite their claim to universal views, the Deists were clearly
creatures of their own age in their agreement that “Enthusiasm”
was a temper of mind in which the imagination had got the better
of judgment. Boswell’s account of Doctor Johnson’s observations
on the “inner light” to which “some methodists pretended” il-
luminates the common attitude. The possibility of private revela-
tions, said Johnson, was “a principle utterly incompatible with
social and civil security,” for if a man lays claim to channels of
insight and pretends to a principle of action unknown to other
men, “how can I tell what that person may be prompted to do?
When a person professes to be governed by a written ascertained
law, I can then know where to find him.”

The majority of the Deists shared this view, which explains
why they quite consistently ignored the religions of India. That
they were not entirely ignorant of Vedantic thought may be as-

sumed, since opportunities for studying the religions and social
life of India were no less available than for exploring the ethical
foundations of Chinese society. Even Swift mentioned Yoga when
in 1710 he published his essay on The Mechanical Operation of
the Spirit. He noted that “the Jauguis , or enlightened Saints of In-
dia, see all their Visions, by help of an acquired straining and pres-
sure of the Eyes.” The Deists consistently opposed priests and
all ecclesiastical systems based on “mysteries.” They argued that
the way to redeem civilization and to promote the moral life of
mankind was to strip society of all its social vanities and religions
of the accretions of time and prejudice. Thus they ignored the
transcendental in the world’s religions. Spiritual disciplines, es-
pecially, seemed to them unnecessary and, if directed to idealistic
ends, distinctly dangerous. Yoga was but another manifestation
of Enthusiasm and was completely irrational.

Thus the practical, social-minded Confucius became the Noble
Sage of the Rationalists of the Enlightenment. Like them, he es-
chewed the mysteries of religion and transcendental speculation,
devoting himself instead to an understanding of man’s moral na-
ture and the study of precedents. Confucianism recognized
chiefly the guidance of reason and of carefully laid moral tradi-
tions. Herein lay its affinity with the current temper. The Deists
and their contemporaries, as Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy has
pointed out, found in the words Natura and Natio profoundly
antithetic connotations, feeling that men should emancipate them-
selves from tribal partialities if they are to be true to nature in
matters both of religion and of artistic taste. They also attempted,
with the scientific temper of the time, to study the world’s reli-
gions in the light of newly acquired intelligence and needs. Thus
they did much to raise the level of European thinking about for-
eign peoples. Despite their prejudices, they made the eighteenth
century perhaps the most sincerely cosmopolitan in European
history.

Various writers soon turned to China and the Confucian texts
for material to support their arguments, whether moral, political,
or religious. Voltaire was perhaps the most outspoken of all Eu-
ropean admirers of China— with Confucius as its ethical preceptor
and the Emperor as its philosopher-king. In his article “De la
Chine” in the Dictionnaire philosophique he answered skeptics

who pointed out Chinese ignorance of Western science. The Chi-
nese, he argued, were superior to Europeans in more important
things, for they stressed the ethical values upon which the State
should be built. “One may be a very poor physicist and an excel-
lent moralist,” Voltaire wrote. “Thus it is in morals, in political
economy, in agriculture, that the Chinese have perfected them-
selves. We have taught them all the rest; but in these matters we
ought to be their disciples. . . . The Constitution of their empire
is in truth the best that there is in the world.” He recognized the
superstition of the lower classes, which travelers had not failed to
note, protesting meanwhile “the fact remains that four thousand
years ago, when we did not know how to read, they knew every-
thing useful of which we boast today.” Voltaire insisted that the
pure religion of Nature, which the civilized peoples of Europe
had lost, was to be found uncorrupted in China. And he ex-
claimed lyrically, “Worship God and practise justice— this is the
sole religion of the Chinese literati. . . . O Thomas Aquinas,
Scotus, Bonaventure, Francis, Dominic, Luther, Calvin, canons
of Westminster, have you anything better? For four thousand
years this religion so simple and so noble, has endured in absolute
integrity; and it is probable that it may be much more ancient.”

Such rhapsodies may appear little more than expressions of ad-
miration which have no social implications. But among the Physi-
ocrats and Encyclopedists of France there was also widespread
interest in Confucian ethics and the Chinese theory of govern-
ment. Numerous philosophes sought, as Adolf Reichwein has
shown in his China and Europe and G. F. Hudson in Europe and
China , for an enlightened theory which would justify political
absolutism. Travel books and Jesuit missionary reports from
abroad, the latter published serially for nearly half a century be-
ginning in 1717 as Lettres edifiantes et curieuses , were their chief
sources of information. Men like Quesnay, called by his disciples
“the Confucius of Europe,” valued Chinese philosophy above the
Greek and sought a foundation for the human order in a divine
order, a way whereby the Tao of the world or the cosmic realities
of Natural Law might be used in France to establish the relations
between the people and the monarchy. In the face of growing
democratic unrest during the decades preceding the French Rev-
olution, there arose a sincere desire to discover for France a moral

foundation for a revitalized and proper sense of the relation be-
tween the citizenry and the monarchy. The Chinese conception
of the relation between the masses and the Emperor contributed
much to Quesnay’s physiocratic doctrines. He announced that
“China is a state founded on science and natural law, whose con-
crete development it represents.” So live indeed was French inter-
est, and so attractive the Chinese concept of government, that
Louis XIV was actually induced to follow the example of the
Chinese Emperors, solemnly guiding a plow at a public ceremony
opening the Spring tilling.

Enthusiasm for the Chinese theory of the State seems to have
been no less great in Germany. Leibnitz had earlier revealed his
own interest in Confucian ethics, especially in the De Novissima
Sinica which had appeared in 1697. The utterances of Christian
Wolff, however, reveal the current view that the Chinese Em-
peror represented the Greek ideal of the philosopher-king ac-
tually institutionalized among men— and the dangers which
proponents of the divine right of kings saw in the concept. In
an oration entitled De Sinarum Philosophia Practicay delivered
June 12, 1721 before the University of Halle on the occasion of
his resignation from the Prorectorship, Wolff aroused a storm of
protest. His remarks seem innocuous enough to modem minds:
“What the Love of Truth, which Philosophy itself inspires, can
effect in Rulers , the Chinese Emperors Yao and Xun are pregnant
Instances, who when they would bring the Empire, founded by
their Predecessors, to a Pitch of greater Perfection, and yet at-
tempt nothing rashly, passing over their own Sons, they chose for
Successors, and made Partners of the Empire those they judged
equal to so great a Task. . . . Xun was so great a Lover of Truth,
that distrusting his own abilities, he would know the Opinions of
others both about himself and his Actions. . . . Here you see
the Effect of Philosophy in philosophical Rulers, and that the
same holds in a ruling Philosopher; Confucius the great Chinese
Philosopher shews by his own Example.” Wolff was branded a
dangerous, pernicious character and ordered by the King of Prus-
sia under pain of immediate death to quit the University of Halle
in twenty-four hours, and the kingdom in forty-eight.

In England there were many echoes of the Continental enthusi-
asm for Confucian ethics and the Chinese system of government.

If the emphases differed slightly it was because England was
blessed to a greater degree with parliamentary government. Nev-
ertheless writers found other reasons for admiring the Chinese
and for imitating them in the conduct of life. Eustace Budgell,
whose Letter to Cleomenes King of Sparta appeared in 1731, said:
“I have observed, that in China no man is a Gentleman by his
Birth , but that the Mandarines, or Gentlemen, become such by
their own Parts and Learning. These Mandarines, by a fundamen-
tal Law of the Chinese Empire, are allowed to tell the Emperor,
in respectful, yet in plain terms, whatever they think is amiss in
in his Conduct; and we are assured, that whenever they think the
Honour of their Prince, or the Good of their Country y makes it
necessary, they never fail to make use of their Privilege.”

The Deistic heresy was dignified by receiving the attention of
the Church itself. In 1727 appeared The Bishop of London's First
Pastoral Letter to the People of His Diocese , . . Occasioned by
Some Late Writings in Favor of Infidelity. It was the work of Ed-
mund Gibson, then the presiding bishop of the English capital, and
was followed by two other letters a few months later. Public in-
terest was so great that several large editions appeared in the space
of two years. In 1732 the three documents were printed collec-
tively, and in 1831 were also published, with additions, in New
York. The bishop’s letters are full of pastoral concern for a con-
tinuing belief in an exclusive Christian revelation. The modem
reader will find in them an impressive marshaling of facts culled
from travel reports stressing heathen idolatry and all forms of
social immorality which would discredit both the Noble Savage
and the Noble Sage— and their “natural” goodness. “These and the
like instances of corruption in worship, doctrine, and practice,
which have prevailed, and do still prevail, in several parts of the
Heathen world, may further show the insufficiency of natural
reason to be a guide in religion, and into what monstrous opinions
and practices whole nations may be led where that is their guide,
without any help from revelation ” wrote the bishop in his second
pastoral letter. Notes accompanying the text refer to religious
practices in China, Japan, Formosa, Ceylon, and India.

Gibson’s letters did not remain unanswered. Curious is the fact,
however, that debate was conducted not upon the merits of the
various Oriental systems of belief, but upon the right of free

thought in England. For example, in 1729 Matthew Tindal, arch-
deist of his time, responded in a printed Address to the Inhabi-
tants ... of London and Westminster: “If Men in Great Britain
no more than Japan,” he argued, owe their religion to chance and
education, they are mutually and equally obliged to examine what
may be said on all sides. Referring to the Bishop of London he
chided: “One wou’d have thought, that a Protestant recommend-
ing Sincerity in the Choice of Religion, shou’d not have us’d such
Arguments, as any Papist might have urg’d at the Dawn of the
Reformation, to hinder its Increase.”

Another curious work, published in London in 1740, was the
anonymous An Irregidar Dissertation Occasioned by the Reading
of Father Du Halde's History of China. Its manifest purpose was
to ridicule the current idealization of China. Brief extracts will
suggest the general character of the English Sinophilism— or Sino-
mania, if that word is preferred. Proceeding “in the Road of
Fooling,” with ill-concealed contempt for the Jesuits, the Deists,
and the Chinese, the writer recorded: “I have often heard it made
a matter of Wonder, that this wide Empire should have subsisted
so very long without any considerable Alteration of Maxims,
Customs, Religion, Language, or Habit.” The Jesuits he held sus-
pect because they had “sworn allegiance to the Lama of Italy ”
and had failed to make clear “the Administration of China to be
a little subject to Juggle.” As for the social equalities and felicity
of Chinese society, he noted pityingly the “poor Chinesey who
being unable to provide for their lnfantsy are forced to leave them
in the Streets, as Preys to the first Dog that lights on them.” The
book offered many pages of such familiar banalities in European
accounts of Oriental life. When, however, the writer turned to
what was currently known and regarded as admirable in Chinese
ethics, his pages become most enlightening. A serious fault in the
Chinese social constitution, he noted, was that Confucian philoso-
phers laid “Weight only on the filial Duty, to the unavoidable
neglect of every other.” Indeed “they have no Parochial Clergy;
but it is the Office of the Mandarin of the Place [merely] to
convocate his Charge at stated Times, and there to preach their
Duty to them.” This was of course the very trait that men like
Voltaire and contemporary priest-baiters found most laudable
about the Chinese, But the climax of the book is the disclosure

that the Chinese “Emperor is the sole priest in his Dominions, a
Pope of this Deism.” The conclusion can be readily surmised.
European Deists had indeed come to a sorry pass when they
could do no better than make the heathen Confucius the high
priest, if not the Pope, of their own religion!

In 1786 appeared Ely Bates’s A Chinese Fragment , Containing
an Enquiry into the Present State of Religion in England , wherein
the author posed as an “intellectual spy” who unceremoniously
entered English homes, churches, and Parliament in search of
proof that “he that wantonly stabs the morals of his country is a
villain.” Probably none of the writers who rose in protest against
the current idealization of China was better informed than Bates;
certainly few wrote from a background of more extensive read-
ing or were more interesting. The Chinese Fragment appeared
three-quarters of a century after Shaftsbury’s Characteristicks.
As Bates surveyed the state of England in his time, he found
much reason for alarm, and like Shaftsbury he was most im-
pressed by the advance of infidelity. “A free thinker ,” he wrote,
“can easily assume all shapes; which is not surprizing, if we reflect
that a man who holds to nothing is best able to act everything;
as stage-players who personate all characters are said to have none
themselves. He is sometimes seen in the guise of a Chinese, talking
notably of Confucius: Anon he is a Turk, and lavishing his
praises on Mohammed: Next, perhaps he is a Magian, and then
you hear wonderful things of Zoroaster: And thus by turns you
may find him a Gymnosophist, a Talapoin, a layman or a priest,
a Jew, or even a Christian: His business is to play the opinions of
mankind upon one another with an eye to their common destruc-
tion, and to erect upon their ruins a monument to Universal Scep-
ticism. . • .”

There was doubtless warrant for Bates’s strictures against the
colorless religionists of his day who assumed all shapes and conse-
quently had no character of their own. C. Delisle Burns recently
has wisely pointed out in The Horizon of Experience a fallacy
which lay at the heart of not only the Deistic view of religion
but also all subsequent efforts to arrive at some sort of universal
faith: “To reduce Christianity and Buddhism to some ‘pure re-
ligion’ which is neither, would be as fantastic as to grow a flower
which was neither a rose nor a lily, but just a flower.” The

Deists’s dream of a universal religion was therefore unrealistic.
All religions and cultures have roots, though the seeds from
which they spring may come from far on the wind; and these
roots strike deep into the spiritual needs of a people, their tradi-
tional ways of thought, and their social milieu. Doubtless the
playing of the opinions of mankind upon one another had unset-
tling effects. Heterodoxy was inevitable in an age of expanding
intellectual horizons, when the outlooks of other peoples were
being compared with the European, and new admirations were
added to all that convention had institutionalized. But there was
also much thoughtless tongue-in-cheek affectation of exotic re-
ligious belief, largely uninformed. It would be difficult to deter-
mine just where to draw the line between a vague catholicity of
view which stemmed from an expanding world consciousness,
and actual belief in the essential tenets held by “Gymnosophists”
and “Talapoins.” Genuine objectivity in evaluating religions had
not appeared.

Time and a slow maturation of insight into the life, social insti-
tutions, and religious beliefs of Orientals were to be required
before many Europeans could actually imitate or judiciously live
by them. Nevertheless the movements and expressions of opinion
that have been noted are not without historical significance. They
mark the beginnings of our modern temper. Most important of
all, they were the result of attraction, a voluntary turning of
many Occidentals to the Orient for an ideal of conduct and life
which somehow seemed wanting in their own heritage. In many
instances we may find the reason for this turning Eastward in
quixotism and the capricious human tendency to affect the bizarre
or the sensational. But there is even greater warrant for seeing in
it a desire by sincere Occidentals to profit by the experience of
maturer cultures, to learn how others handle the business of life,
and to appropriate from the race’s cultural capital. Men set out
to be citizens of the world, not of their native parishes alone. The
first steps may have been awkward but they were definitely set
in the road which many in subsequent generations were to take.

The general literature of the Renaissance and the eighteenth
century, no less than the literature of religious controversy, re-
flected the impact of the Orient upon the European imagination.
Figures of speech based on the East India trade and quotations
drawn from Oriental scripture or mythology are evidence of a
slowly accumulating body of literary allusion, ornamentation, and
reference. In the literature of the Ancients-Moderns controversy,
a quarrel which involved the application of modern scientific
critical principles to the study of the classics of Greece and
Rome, the Orient played no insignificant part.

“Who were the ancients to those who are ancients to us?” was
a question Sir William Temple raised in rhetorical defense of the
cyclical view of history. If the principle of the cyclical theory
was granted, the conclusion seemed obvious: the ancients to the
Greeks were the philosophers of India and China. No reader of
Temple’s essays can fail to be impressed by his wide search for
evidence to prove his thesis. William Wotton, Temple’s opponent
in the English phase of the quarrel which began in France, was
no less willing to lay under debt the records of travelers who had
visited the Orient.

The so-called literature of Primitivism was another reflection
of the uses to which Europeans put increasing knowledge of the
Orient in the support of a theory. Another subject worthy of
study is the literature of chronology. Nearly a century before
Lord Monboddo published in 1773 Of the Origin and Progress of
Language , Matthew Hale had revealed in his Primitive Origination
of Mankind, in 1677, how European chronologers had been stag-
gered by reports which implied the apparent discovery, in the
dynastic histories of China and mythology of India, of evidence
suggesting that man had flourished in the East long before the
creation of Adam. If this proved true, the entire Mosaic chron-
ology, the authority of the Bible itself, and the foundations of the
Christian faith would be undermined.

Similarly the discovery of unknown languages led to wild spec-
ulations. What was the original language of the world? Modern
scholarship is no longer concerned with Pre-Adamites, or the
theory that the ark of Noah eventually rested on mountains tor-

dering China, that country being subsequently populated by de-
scendants of Noah who were not at the building of Babel. The
conclusion that the Chinese language was therefore the primitive
and uncorrupted language of the race was seriously argued. Fan-
tastic as such theories may seem, they suggest the extent to which
Europeans were driven by new discoveries to a reconsideration
of their historic relation to other branches of the human family.

In popular literature the extension of the “comparative” out-
look is represented by such classics as Goldsmith’s Citizen of the
World and Montesquieu’s Persian Letters . The travel observations
of Europeans had for more than a century offered to their read-
ers critical comments on Oriental institutions and life. Beginning
in France about 1684 with Marana’s Letters of a Turkish Spy , Eu-
ropean writers turned the tables and anticipated the Orientals of
our own day who point out Western fallibility. Assuming the
role of skeptics, they created fictional observers who, presumably
visiting London or Paris for the first time, affected a disconcert-
ing naivete, offered apparently innocent but fundamentally caus-
tic comments on European civilization, and raised troublesome
questions which cast doubts upon the perfection of its institutions
and modes of thought. No literature of the time offers a better
reflection of the kind of knowledge about the Orient which had
become most challenging to the average Westerner.

The device of the mock-spy also offered matchless opportuni-
ties for irony and satire in the hands of men seeking to eradicate
absolutist concepts, bad taste sanctioned by the “rules” of the
Ancients, intellectual error entrenched in ecclesiastical institu-
tions, and social customs or foibles. Much of Goldsmith’s Citi-
zen of the World may be trivia; but the careful reader will
discover that he admired Confucius and Mencius and put some
of their best passages to effective use. In the hands of Voltaire,
the mock-spy sketch was devastating. At its best, the genre
marks the beginning of an effort to balance sagaciously the social
customs and philosophies of the East and West, to point out that
concepts of morals and beauty are infinitely diversified in dif-
ferent times and places, that truth is relative and not to be
ascertained through mere logic. An historian has appropriately
observed that the human ant-hill of Europe was at last viewed as
merely another ant-hill of the world. Essayists who used Persian,

Turkish, Chinese, and Armenian “spies” as their spokesmen, by a
mixture of flippancy and sagacity demonstrated the unimpor-
tance of many domestic deities, ridiculed hollow platitudes, sug-
gested that some conventions had no more value than pasteboard,
and hinted that all European traditions did not correspond in
every detail with universal values.

The mock-spy sketch as a mirror of European self-discovery
and of the contrast between cultures cannot be better illustrated
than by G. Lowes Dickinson’s Letters from A Chinese Official .
The book appeared anonymously in 1903 with the subtitle “Be-
ing An Eastern View of Western Civilization.” A Cambridge don
who for years had devoted himself to Greek studies, Dickinson
through wide reading acquired an admiration for Chinese civili-
zation that matched Voltaire’s. His letters were clearly written in
imitation of the mock-spy sketch which had persisted through
two centuries. Their attack on conventional Christianity, on the
economic foundations of European civilization, and on its moral
and aesthetic outlooks was regarded by readers familiar with the
traditional form in which it appeared as the work of a poet
blessed with a richly stored mind and a mellow, kindly spirit. Not
so by William Jennings Bryan, who had made little more than a
tourist’s visit to China where he was doubtless feted as a great
American statesman, impressed by the trade of the treaty ports,
and convinced of the justice of extraterritoriality. Having read
Dickinson’s book and been completely fooled by the author’s
pose, Bryan assumed the role of champion of European civiliza-
tion and defender of its faiths. In 1906 his defense appeared under
the title Letters To A Chinese Official Being a Western View of
Eastern Civilization . “Never having visited China and never hav-
ing acquainted myself with Chinese philosophy,” wrote Bryan in
his preface, “the absurdity of his [Dickinson’s] contrast between
American life and Chinese life was not apparent. Now that I have
had an opportunity to test his description by personal observa-
tion, I feel that a reply is due to him as well as required from us.
. . The Dickinson-Bryan “debate” is a classic illustration of
the differences between the appeal of the Orient to a disciplined
mind, capable of sensing the inner spirit of a culture, and the im-
pact of that culture upon an uninformed observer obsessed with
materialistic Occidental achievements. But it should be regarded

3°

more as the climax of a body of revealing literature than as an ex-
ample of Bryan’s gullibility or the insensitivity of diplomatic of-
ficialdom.

No survey of “orientalism” in the popular literature of the
eighteenth century would be complete which neglects mention
of the Arabian Nights and the many imitations which it inspired,
following the English translation of Galland’s French rendering in
1704. The perennial appeal of the book is well suggested by
Wordsworth:

The tales that charm away the wakeful night

In Araby, romances; legends penned

For solace by dim light of monkish lamps;

Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised
By youthful squires; adventures endless.

Wordsworth’s enthusiasm, when he discovered as a boy that the
volume he had dearly purchased “was but a block hewn from a
mighty quarry,” was clearly anticipated by an earlier generation.

Martha P. Conant’s Oriental Tale in England , though incom-
plete and occasionally exaggerating the known facts, contains an
argument that is worthy of note. The chief elements of narrative
art, plot, character, and background, are found in varying de-
grees in all literature. But not until the wide circulation of the
Arabian Nights in England were they effectively combined by
writers of English fiction. In the second decade of the eighteenth
century, periodical essayists flourished and works like the “Sir
Roger de Coverley” sketches were widely read, but men of let-
ters offered their readers almost no plot. As literature, such writ-
ings satisfied the cultivated taste of the time; but they could
hardly be called adequate fare for the imagination, fancy, and
emotions. Later, Samuel Richardson published Pamela in 1741 and
Clarissa Harlowe in 1747-48. Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews
appeared in 1742, and Tom Jones in 1749. Tobias Smollett and
Lawrence Sterne are also prominent in the history of the English
novel. But the slow-moving “epistolary” style was not designed
for readers who liked swiftly moving plot, rapidly changing
scenes, and the excitement of pages in which fantastically wealthy
sultans, beautiful princesses, and disconsolate heroes worked out
their destinies with magic and intrigue. Old heroic romances and

tales of chivalry, to be sure, could be read for thrilling feats of
arms and lovers' escapes in a charming world of medievalism; but
it was not the world of the Arabian Nights. An interest in narra-
tive action which stems from the enthusiasm aroused by that
book, Miss Conant argues, is among the contributions of the
Orient to Occidental literature.

One needs only to be reminded of the Spanish picaresque
novel, to realize the dangers of observing too partially the influ-
ence of the Oriental tale. On the other hand, the career of
Thomas Simon Gueulette, perhaps the most prolific of all imita-
tors, who flourished between 1683 and 1766 and produced col-
lections with such titles as Chinese Tales, Mogul Tales, and
j Peruvian Tales, is an indication of the popularity of the pseudo-
Oriental in both France and England. Many other adapters who
followed cared little whether their stories were spurious or far-
fetched, so long as the market flourished. Their work as a whole
is hardly of genuine literary merit. But from, this subsoil some
of the great classics of Western literature grew. Samuel Johnson,
financially embarrassed, knew what he was about when in 1759
he produced his Rasselas. Joseph Addison, himself an innovator,
wrote his famous Vision of Mirza for the Spectator. Oliver Gold-
smith wrote Asern, an Eastern Tale: or a Vindication of the
Wisdom of Providence in the Moral Government of the World.
William Beckford produced Vathek, one of the best oriental-
gothic thrillers of the century. On the Continent Voltaire ele-
vated the genre with such classics as Zadig and The Good
Brahmin.

The uses of the Oriental tale in American literature may be
illustrated by Benjamin Franklin’s little story, An Arabian Tale,
which at first glance appears one of the most inconsequential of
his writings. But closer examination reveals that it was an expres-
sion of Franklin’s spiritual experience, his misgivings about the
existence of evil, his inability to justify the ways of God to man,
and his honest confession that “the Dispensations of Providence
in this World puzzle my weak Reason.” The story is simply that
of the magician Albumazar, who having renounced the society
of men retired in old age to the mountain of Calabut. Living
alone, he was nightly visited by genii and spirits who became his
instructors. On one occasion his guest was a great genie named

Belubel. Albumazar began by confessing that, despite his love and
respect for the wisdom and beneficence of God, he could not
comprehend how the Most High permitted the existence of evil.
Belubel chided Albumazar for attacking such problems with the
puny weapons of Reason and advised him to contemplate “the
scale of beings, from an elephant down to an oyster.” Then fol-
lowed an exposition of the “great chain of being” concept. The
plan of the world is one in which “There is no gap, but the grada-
tion is complete. Men in general do not know, but thou knowest,
that in ascending from an elephant to the infinitely Great, Good,
and Wise, there is also a long gradation of beings, who possess
powers and faculties of which thou canst yet have no concep-
tion.” Thus man may be comforted, for though the gradations
of nature may not be apparent, there is warrant for the faith that
ultimately they reach an entity whose faculties are infinite. The
idea is to be found in Greek thought, and' it persisted through
the eighteenth century. Franklin’s acquaintance with the con-
cept may be assumed. Its development in An Arabian Tale is an
illustration of the manner in which many writers put Western
ideas into foreign forms of literary expression. The serious-
minded found the Oriental apologue continuously useful.

The browser in the periodical literature of the eighteenth cen-
tury will not be long in recognizing the varied purposes to which
writers on both sides of the Atl*\ntic put the pseudo-Oriental tale.
It became also a vehicle for social and political satire, and in its
more imaginative forms was blended with the fairy tale. Tales of
adventure of course needed no apology; they were their own
excuse for being. But the moral uses of the genre were widely
defended. A couplet in the Rambler suggests the values as Doctor
Johnson himself saw them;

The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail,

Conceals the moral counsel in the tale.

In the title page of the 1736 English edition of Gueulette’s Mogul
Tales the same suggestion appears:

In pleasing Tales, the artful Sage can give

Rules, how in Happiness and Ease to live:

Can show that Good should most attract the Mind,

And how our Woes we from our Vices find;

Delighting, yet instructing thus our Youth,

Who catch at Fable— How to gather Truth.

Obviously no literature so freighted with preachment could long
retain its popularity. The exotic tale flourished best when its func-
tion was chiefly a fictional device for presenting the platitudes of
the Johnsonian and Addisonian essay.

To dismiss the pseudo-Oriental tale as inconsequential may be
justified if it is compared with other contemporary literature.
But such tales served a purpose which the social historian cannot
ignore. The “Discourse on the Usefulness of Romances” in the
Mogul Tales by Gueulette contains an apologia that is illumi-
nating:

The late Humour of reading Oriental Romances, such
as the Arabian, Persian, and Turkish Tales, tho’ I will
not contend, it has much better'd our Morals , has how-
ever extended our Notions , and made the Customs of the
East more familiar to us than they were before , or prob-
ably ever would have been , had they not been communi-
cated to us by this indirect , and pleasant Way. Now these
are certainly very great Advantages , and very valuable
Acquirements, even to Men, and many giddy young Fel-
lows have been , by amusing themselves with Trifles, taught
to conceive clearly , and to converse properly, in relation
to Things which otherwise they would have known noth-
ing about .

The tales did convey useful knowledge to the European public.
Fact was often mixed with fiction, and the pseudo-Oriental vo-
cabulary is clear warrant for doubting the authenticity of many
details. But many writers also sought widely for information
which would give verisimilitude to their work and enable readers
to live imaginatively in worlds which later writers like Rudyard
Kipling and Pierre Mille, Richard Burton and Pierre Loti were
to exploit. The intent and methods of such writers have changed.
Moderns like Sax Rohmer and Ernest Brahma, Lin Yutang and
Pearl Buck, continue to represent either fantastic and imaginative
or idealistic themes, adapting them to various levels of public

taste. Ultimately all are engaged in creating a world of mystery
and adventure or in revealing the essential traits of humble folk
in distant lands. Whether fiction dealing with the Orient is finally
to be analyzed for its objective sociological truth, or for all the
shades of insight and of taste which it contains, is a task which
historians and critics must ultimately determine. Of its influence
on Western attitudes toward non-European peoples, and its use-
fulness in conveying information about them, there can be no
doubt.

Fiction was not the only literary form in which the Oriental
interests of eighteenth-century men of letters found expression.
In the opera and ballet, no less than in drama, the influence can
be traced. A competent study by T. Blake Clark entitled Oriental
England , published in 1939 in Shanghai, is an impressive exposi-
tion of the influence on drama, which indicates that the Mikados
and Madame Butterflies and the exotic vaudeville extravaganzas
of the modern stage were also anticipated more than two centuries
ago. “Writers of heroic drama,” Clark noted after arduous re-
search in widely scattered British and American libraries housing
rare plays and manuscripts, “were not interested so much in learn-
ing from Oriental culture as in ransacking it. They chose Turkish,
Persian, Egyptian, and Chinese heroes because Eastern monarchs
suited the heroic tradition, which required of a ruler arrogance,
boasting, and omnipotence. Audiences, however, grown tired of
stale heroics, were attracted to the new scenery, costume, and
atmosphere. These new interests had an effect on the plays.”
Thus, while the Oriental influences on English dramatic technique
were negligible, the interest in character and setting was pro-
nounced. Paul Whitehead’s prologue to Arthur Murphy’s Orphan
of China , published in 1759 and based on Voltaire’s earlier work
which in turn had been derived from a version in the Jesuit Du
Halde’s writings, nevertheless suggests that playwrights sought to
present Oriental thought to their audiences while they entertained
them with exotic costumes and settings.

Enough of Greece and Rome: Th’ exhausted store
Of either nation now can charm no more . . .

On eagle wings the poet of to-night
Soars for fresh virtues to the source of light;

To China’s eastern realms: and boldly bears
Confucius’ morals to Britannia’s ears.

Poetry also reflected the current taste. The outstanding figure
who, before the flourishing of the Romantic Movement, turned
his attention to Oriental verse was Bishop Thomas Percy, famed
for his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Historians intent on
his “gothic” researches rarely have noted that the eminent com-
piler of the English Reliques did not restrict his antiquarian re-
searches to the British Isles. In 1762 Percy published Miscella-
neous Pieces Relating to the Chinese , which contained several
essays on Chinese drama, poetry, and kindred arts. It was fol-
lowed in 1775 by Ancient Songs Chiefly on Moorish Subjects .
Scores of other Primitivists made studies in the “originals” of hu-
man expression, ignoring the fact that they necessarily devoted
themselves to the secondhand versions made available to them by
Jesuit scholars and educated travelers.

Among the pre-Romantic poets of England who extended the
poetic use of Oriental materials were William Collins, Thomas
Chatterton, John Scott, and Eyles Irwin. Their “Oriental Ec-
logues” may seem tame or wooden to the modern reader, and
there is scant evidence that they took pains to discover the pro-
sodic forms or the essential character of the great Oriental litera-
tures. It is true that Sir William Jones, one of England’s first great
Orientalists and a poet in his own right, had presented the results
of years of painstaking study to the public; and John Scott, in-
spired as a consequence, had written an apostrophe to Jones of
which the following lines are representative:

The Asian Muse, a stranger fair!

Becomes at length Britannia’s care;

And Hafiz’ lays, and Sadi’s strains,

Resound along our Thames’s plains.

Sir William Jones may be regarded as the first outstanding exam-
ple in English literature of the happy combination of erudition
and literary skill, for he was both linguist and poet. But the work
of Chatterton and Collins was distinctly different. Theirs was the
self-appointed task, not of translating Oriental tongues into Eng-
lish, but of pouring into timeworn molds new knowledge about

3<S

Oriental peoples and their folkways. The artificial pastoral, long
kept alive by the mighty names of Virgil, Spenser, Milton, and
Pope, had fallen into the hands of a new generation which re-
tained its conventional form but insisted on adapting it to new
subject matter. The substitution of Orientals for the conventional
rude swains and shepherdesses of the pastoral of classical tradition
seems startling, almost grotesque. But with a shift in setting to
some exotic place, a few descriptive details lifted from a recent
history or travel book, a borrowed story of courtship between
lovers of feuding Oriental tribes, the poet had no difficulty in
producing work which satisfied both the current neo-classical
sense of form and the romantic love of the strange.

Thus there were few departments of European intellectual and
cultural life which, before 1800, did not to some extent feel the
impact of ov'erseas discovery.

To understand the “orientalism” of the nineteenth century
we must comprehend the Romantic temper, which included more
than mere poetic interest in something “far away and long ago.”
It was the expression of a state of mind rather than a literary
movement. Hoxie N. Fairchild in The Roma?itic Quest defined
the temper as “the endeavor, in the face of growing obstacles,
to achieve, to retain, or to justify that illusioned view of the uni-
verse and of human life which is produced by an imaginative
fusion of the familiar and the strange, the known and the un-
known, the real and the ideal, the material and the spiritual, the
natural and the supernatural.” It is obvious, if this definition is
accepted, that Romanticism may reflect exotic sentimentalism, or
an “inspired muddleheadedness” or a search for either an earthly
paradise or some City of God. It also touches many chords of
human emotion and is inherent in many types of speculation. In
its more popular forms, some romantics often substituted dissipa-
tion in naturalistic dreams for intellectual or moral discipline, and
inevitably many in time discovered little more than surfeit of the
emotions. The critical literature of Romanticism is consequently
filled with discussion of the fate of minds which sought salvation
by grace of nature rather than by grace of God. Rarely is com-

plete objectivity to be found in the critical literature of such
work, and in few fields is there more lively controversy.

In the nineteenth century, it should first be noted, almost all
the literary manifestations of the cultural discovery of the Orient
are romantic. They can be understood, even if they may not be
admired. Several basic facts explain the change in temper and the
shift of interest from China to India and the Near East. Europeans
with a taste for foreign expressions of human experience and spec-
ulation after 1800 were no longer restricted to the secondhand
reports of travelers and to inadequate translations. Through
learned Oriental Societies, the philosophical literature of the
world gradually came into all the major languages, and Europeans
had unfolded before them the greatest books of foreign peoples.
From these they were free to select themes to be developed and
ideas to be pondered.

The second factor was the rise of Anthropology and Darwin-
ism. Superstitions fell like autumn leaves and religion became less
identified with creedal or national traditions. The futility of fixed
doctrinal positions dawned in the minds of generations compelled
to adjust their thought to Evolution. There grew simultaneously
the realization that the spiritual needs from which religions arise
assert themselves in all parts of the world.

The third factor was the Industrial Revolution. The ugliness of
smoky industrialism and the deplorable conditions of labor en-
couraged the “escapist” tendencies dormant in all men. The
world-weary sought imaginatively for Arcadia or spiritually for
some vague Nirvana.

Metaphysicians and mystics meanwhile created a new my-
thology of the “supernatural” and sought anew to understand
physical phenomena or to secure kinship with the life in living
things. During the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the intel-
lectual horizons of Europeans had been broadened. With the
progress of the nineteenth century the natural order of human
experience followed: after the discovery of new facts, new peo-
ples, and new realms of thought and human experience, came the
inevitable deepening of insights and understanding. The processes
of discovery continued geographically and outwardly with the
exploration of the hearts of continents; but they also became in-
creasingly inward, as each new translation of great Oriental works

revealed the dimensions of the mystical and intellectual worlds in
which other peoples lived. The guiding principle of European
cultural appropriation from the Orient continued to be laissez
faire. Like the winds that blow as they list, often unpredictable
in origin and indeterminate in direction, the drift of “oriental-
ism” continued in startling ways in a different and newer age.

The list of great writers who reflected in varying degrees an
interest in or a debt to the Orient increased: Rueckert, Goethe,
Heine, and others in Germany; Gautier and Leconte de Lisle in
France; Byron, Southey, Moore, and Landor in England; Emer-
son, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman in America. All did not
write with the same purpose, and they varied in their emphases
and in the materials laid under debt. Some merely borrowed from
the foreign literatures a metaphysical or symbolical apparatus,
and had no intention of exalting the East above the West. Others
were sensitive exoticists with a morbidly refined sense of values
who nursed their grievances against the workaday world and
sought escape from the dullness of Europe in a pseudo-Orient of
opium, hashish, or voluptuousness where life, it was imagined,
was freer and more abundant. The various worlds sought, de-
pending upon the temperament of the writer, ranged from earthly
Arcadias to the transcendental Over-Soul, from the Oriental
equivalent of the Blue Flower to the world east of Suez where,
as Kipling said, a man can raise a thirst.

The nadir of Romantic exoticism is found in the annual “gift
book” anthologies published on both sides of the Atlantic. Most
of the poems appear to have been the work of poetasters who
followed a recipe guaranteed to produce sure-fire best-sellers. The
English Keepsake of 1828, for example, suggests the desired hero,
essentially Byronic in character:

Next a hero with an air,

Half a brigand— half Corsair.

His vocabulary was pseudo-Oriental and consisted of references
to gazelles, bulbuls, peepul trees, Arab tents, and even Chinese
bamboo bungalows. Little more was needed than a pale, melan-
choly heroine waiting for her Byronic lover. The final touch,
contributed by the poet, completed the formula:

And I give you, mix’d with western sentimentalism,

Some samples of the finest Orientalism.

Much of the doggerel is of no literary value— save to those who
like pretty sentiments dressed up in rhyme, or to the highly imagi-
native who indulge in dreams of being modern Don Juans kissing
Burma maidens before the idol of the great god Buddha, or who
like the less adventurous lines of the American poet Clinton
Scollard:

Before our eyes will gleam and glance
The woven threads of old romance,—

Those fabrics fair that never fade,

Spun by the brave Scheherezade.

And we will list the tranced tales
Of plaintive Shiraz nightingales,

Bemoaning love around the tomb
Where Hafiz sleeps in scented gloom.

No vintage-draught soe’er, compressed
From the broad bosom of the West,

Can yield the keen delight of this
Enthralling, roseate cup of bliss.

From such sub-literature, however, flowered later some of the
most representative works of the better-known Romantic poets.
If only as literary humus, therefore, it has significance. When
Byron and some of his friends studied the public taste and literary
market of their day, they were not long in realizing the financial
profits to be reaped by catering to the vogue. Thus in 1813 Byron
wrote in a letter to a friend: “Stick to the East; the oracle, Stael,
told me it was the only poetical policy. The North, South, and
West have all been exhausted. . . Walter Savage Landor had
anticipated the advice and in 1798 produced the Gebir; as had
also Robert Southey when in 1801 he published Thalaba , which
purported to be an “Epic of Islam,” and in 1810 The Curse of
Kehamaj a verse romance based on Hindu materials. Thomas
Moore’s Lalla Rookh , an Oriental tale having much in common
with the prose versions of the preceding century, was perhaps in
one sense the outstanding work of its type. Written in easy-

flowing verse ornamented with richly exotic imagery, the poem
appeared in 1817 and became instantly popular. It went through
six editions in its first year and is said to have commanded the
highest price ever paid in England for a copy right— 3, 000 guineas.

Byron was both a mediator between the eighteenth- and nine-
teenth-century uses of the Oriental tale and an outstanding pur-
veyor of exotic sentimentalism to his public. Even a casual
glance through his poetry offers ample evidence; a careful reading
of his letters indicates how persistent were his Oriental interests
and how frequently he referred to them. His familiar Giaour car-
ried the subtitle “A Fragment of a Turkish Tale”; and the “Ad-
vertisement” states that the “story . . . contained the adventures
of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into
the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her
lover. . . .” The Bride of Abydos also had the subtitle “A Turkish
Tale.” But Byron’s position is more than that of a poet who saved
the vogue from complete mawkishness. His chief significance in
the history of literary “orientalism” is that his work marked the
point at which slowly diverging streams eventually separated.
Rasselas and Don Juan would have been strange bedfellows.

Preaching disappeared in the handling of the Oriental tale by
Byron and his school, but exotic moralism did not pass out of
fashion. The Occidental tendency to regard the Orient as the
home of profound wisdom persisted and reappeared in work best
typified by Leigh Hunt’s “Abou Ben Adhem,” a poem long
known to schoolboys, which pleased readers who frowned on
Byronic corsairs and houris. “Abou Ben Adhem, may his tribe
increase!” Hunt’s prayer was abundantly answered. Many readers
have found the good sheik’s literary descendants more platitudi-
nous than profound. Others may regard the “tribe” as “tripe.”
But the growth of the new form was in no way fortuitous.

The best explanation is perhaps to be found in the essays of
Theodore Watts-Dunton, who flourished from 1832 to 1914 and
represented the average levels of Victorian taste. His Poetry and
the Renascence of Wonder , posthumously published in 1916, re-
flected the tendency of the average Victorian to be sentimentally
mystical rather than metaphysical, and to extend the explorations
of the occult into the Vedantic and Sufistic literature which
scholars and popularisers had made accessible. Watts-Dunton’s

essay on “Ethical Poetry,” arguing that the greatest ethical litera-
ture of the world was not Hellenic but Buddhistic, is a revealing
statement of the trend. His review of Browning’s Ferishtatis Fan-
cies in the Athenaeum in 1884 offers the clearest apologia for the
pseudo-Oriental moralistic poem. Browning’s work was a sample
of parable-poetry, suggested Watts-Dunton, a type which had
long been popular in the East and which could profitably be used
as epitomes of philosophies of life. The task of such poetry was
“to set self-conscious philosophy singing and dancing ... to the
tune of a waterfall . . . and the preacher strumming a gypsy’s
tambourine.” No critic, except with tongue in cheek, could seri-
ously consider Watts-Dunton’s essay as a contribution to critical
literature. But it is a useful explanation of the popularity on both
sides of the Atlantic of such poems as Browning’s “Ben Kar-
shook’s Wisdom” and the better known “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” The
Anglo-American poets who wrote such poems are to be num-
bered by scores, if not hundreds.

In the popularity of pseudo-Oriental verse may also be found
a partial explanation of the amazing reception given in England
and America to two of the most widely read poems of the Vic-
torian era— Edward Fitzgerald’s rendering of the Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam and Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asiay an epic based
on the life of Buddha. It would be difficult to find a more essen-
tially incompatible pair than Omar and Buddha: the former a
hedonist, the latter the founder of a religion based on complete
renunciation. But the two poems represent the many-faceted
attraction of the East for the West and the manner in which
contradictory outlooks on life may exist side by side in a
generation.

The dubious question of Sufistic symbolism in the Rubaiyat
manifestly could not have concerned the general reader. Its pop-
ularity is explained by the fact that it expressed for a baffled gen-
eration some of the problems which occupied men like Thomas
Hardy: man’s fate in an inexplicable universe, the moral implica-
tions of Darwinism, and the great social issues posed by the
Industrial Revolution. Matthew Arnold’s “Sohrab and Rustum,”
outwardly an adaptation from the Persian Shah Nameh of Fir-
dausi, was more than an episode from a great epic: like “Dover
Beach,” it epitomized a world wherein father and son, and ig-

norant armies, clashed by night, and in which little certitude and
help for pain were found. Fitzgerald, through an Oriental, ex-
pressed the persisting human longing for release through the bowl
and exotic delights. His art made the poem something more than
the banal work of preceding poetasters who had mixed sentimen-
talism and orientalism for an insatiable public.

Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia y published in 1879 and reported
to have gone into sixty editions in England and eighty in Amer-
ica, aroused the animosity of many Christian pulpits. But clerics
whose theology offered release from life’s troubles only in a
heaven achieved after death could not divert readers who longed
for a vague Nirvana. Furthermore, Arnold’s sonorous blank verse
included Oriental luxuriance and deft Tennysonian heightening
of effects. A sympathetic portrayal of the life and teachings of
a noble-spirited Indian prince who had solved the problem of
evil, the poem contained a theosophy without the fantastic cos-
mology of Madame Blavatsky. Its message was clearly for minds
staggered by Darwinism and the realization that nature was red
in tooth and claw.

One reason for the popularity of the Light of Asia in America
was doubtless the fact that its readers represented a generation
of New Englanders who had lost faith in both its hope and an-
cestral traditions. Unitarianism had become a “sucked eggshell”;
its positive content had been lost. Restless striving seemed pur-
poseless, without direction; life had been emptied of spiritual
meaning. “As I see the entire world today,” wrote Henry Adams
in a letter to his brother, “it has already reached its lowest level,
and is likely to stay there. ... It can’t get much flatter. . . .
Artists of course disappeared long ago as social forces. So did
the church.” For men like William Sturgis Bigelow, Percival
Lowell, John La Farge, Henry Adams, the Spanish- Yankee of
Salem, Ernest Fenollosa, and the cosmopolitan Lafcadio Hearn,
Japan and Buddhism offered quiet, solace, and escape. Such men
gravitated to Japan or China for various reasons, as art collectors
or as mere travelers, but all sought for a true spiritual home where
the whirlwinds of life are calmed and absolute truth might be
found. Only a minority of Americans, to be sure, sympathized
with their quest. In 1886 Henry Adams and John La Farge, en
route to Japan, were interviewed by a reporter in Nebraska. Ad-

ams wrote in a letter to his friend John Hay: “At Omaha a young
reporter got the better of us; for when in reply to his inquiry
as to our purpose in visiting Japan, La Farge beamed through his
spectacles the answer that we were in search of Nirvana, the
youth looked up like a meteor, and rejoined: ‘It’s out of season!’ ”
When later La Farge published An Artist's Letters from Japan ,
he dedicated the book to Adams and concluded with this melan-
choly note: “If only we had found Nirvana— but he was right
who warned us that we were late in this season of the world.”

The significant fact is that representative Americans of the nine-
ties thought in these terms. The Nirvana which the disillusioned
of New England sought is best defined in the Ingersoll Lecture
which Bigelow gave at Harvard in 1908 on Buddhism and Im-
mortality. That book, with La Farge’s An Artist's Letters from
Japan , Percival Lowell’s The Soul of the Far Easty Lafcadio
Hearn’s pages of spiritual autobiography, and the less historical
passages of Fenollosa’s Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art , ex-
press the mood of the generation for whom the Western spiritual
tradition had lost its force. It was not, however, merely a passing
temper which was to leave no mark on American art and
literature.

When La Farge visited Japan with Adams, he had been com-
missioned to paint the mural above the altar of the Church of
the Ascension in New York. His letters to the art critic, Royal
Cortissoz, in part printed in the latter’s biography John La Fargey
suggest one of the practical purposes of the journey. La Farge
sought as a background for the figure of the ascending Christ a
mountainous place where rocks and clouds would readily suggest
the miraculous. He had a vague belief that in Japan he would
find “certain conditions of line in the mountains which might
help me. Of course the Judean mountains were entirely out of
question, all the more that they implied a given space.” In Japan,
furthermore, was an atmosphere, both natural and spiritual, in
which the appearance and disappearances of Buddhist saints could
be sensed as normal events— and the ascension of Christ could be
conceived as perfectly fitting, because the natural and the super-
natural were never dissociated. Having found the site which sat-
isfied him, La Farge made his background experiments and
returned to New York to work. As he painted, his friend Okakura

talked with him, he wrote to Cortissoz, “about spiritual manifesta-
tions and all that beautiful wonderland” which the Japanese cher-
ished and “where spiritual bodies take form and disappear again and
the edges of the real and the imaginary melt.” La Farge apparently
met only one serious objection. It came from a lady “who was
troubled by certain news she had heard,” namely, that “I made
these studies of clouds in a pagan country.” His comment was:
“A true Episcopalian would make them, I suppose, in England.”

The mural in the Church of the Ascension was not, however,
the only result of La Farge’s Oriental interests. He was later com-
missioned to paint panels to be placed in the Court House at
Baltimore. Confucius was the subject of one. He was asked also
to undertake four paintings for the Supreme Court Room in the
State Capitol of Minnesota, and for “The Recording of the
Precedents” he again used as the central figure Confucius busy
with his pupils in the collation and transcription of ancient docu-
ments. Cortissoz wrote: “The figures were true types of Eastern
intellectuality and spirituality.” Reference to such works as these
by La Farge suggests the moot question of the significance of
the work of a host of lesser artists who have turned to the Orient
for subjects and background. The results have never been system-
atically studied by specialists, and consequently no historian is
in a position to damn with faint praise or to state with enthusiasm
that in such American art there has appeared a happy meeting of
the East and West. But the problem awaits the study of judicious
critics. The famous monument which Henry Adams commis-
sioned Saint-Gaudens to execute for his wife’s grave at Rock Creek
Cemetery in Washington is another landmark in the spiritual
quest of one of the most sensitive spirits ever to appear in Amer-
ica. Goaded by sorrow at the loss of his wife, Adams often called
the statue Nirvana, and others have vaguely suggested that it
was inspired by the Chinese Goddess of Mercy. Obviously the
influence of the Orient upon our artists who work with brush
and chisel cannot be ignored.

The work of Ernest Fenollosa in the preservation of ancient
art in Japan itself, and in encouraging its collection and study in
America, is also worthy of note. He played no small part in
making Boston and its famous museum one of the richest centers
in the world. Fenollosa was also an influence in encouraging the

study of Oriental literature. His work on the Noh drama of
Japan was revised and published after his death by Ezra
Pound under the title Certain Noble Plays of Japan. Of even
greater significance was Fenollosa’s essay on The Chinese Written
Character as a Medium of Poetry , an “ars poetica” written in
conscious realization that modern man “not only turns a new page
in the book of the world, but opens another and a startling chap-
ter” which will involve “world-embracing cultures half-weaned
from Europe” and “undreamed responsibilities for nations and
races.” Few books threw clearer light on the essential interests of
the Imagists who later turned to the Orient for inspiration and
method.

It is not only in what Van Wyck Brooks has called the “Indian
Summer” of New England culture that our representative men
turned to the Orient for spiritual or intellectual support. The
earlier period of the “flowering” of New England is significant
for many reasons. One is that the temper of Emersonian Concord
was positive, not negative. Another is that some of its most char-
acteristic thought was the result of Yankee roots striking into
Oriental humus and deriving therefrom rich nutriment. (In The
Orient in American Transcendentalism I have offered an expo-
sition of the outstanding manifestations.)

The grammarian Donatus once cried: “Damn those who said
what we mean, before us!” But such men as Emerson and Tho-
reau, instead of feeling despair at discovering that great seers of
the past had expressed their thoughts before them, were delighted.
They trusted their own intuitions and fell back upon experience
which, to use Emerson’s phrase, affirmed the existence of the
One Bottom in the universe. Their chief Oriental interest was
in the Vedanta and they were led to the Hindus for proof of the
fact that the “eminent men of each church” in both hemispheres
“think and say the same thing.” There can be little doubt of the
reasons behind Emerson’s orientalism, when one reads such words
from his pen as: “In the history of intellect no more important
fact than the Hindu theology, teaching that the beatitude or su-
preme good is to be attained through science: namely, by the
perception of the real and the unreal, setting aside matter, and
qualities and affections or emotions and persons, as Maias or illu-
sions, and thus arriving at the contemplation of the one eternal

4 6

Life and Cause, and a perpetual approach and assimilation to
Him ”

The Transcendentalists were not system makers. They were
men who sought an ethic and therapeutically useful religious phi-
losophy at a time when European thinkers were wrestling with
rationalistic Sensationalism and romantic Idealism. Both the Deists
and the Transcendentalists sought a universal substrate for religion
and ethics; but each started with totally different premises. In
terms of their Oriental leanings they are differentiated by all that
distinguishes social China from mystic India. The search of the
Transcendentalists was for glimpses of the Over-Soul, of mystic
insights and illumination which like glints of gold in a lump of
ore shone through the plethora of the world about them and in
man’s beliefs.

This is the explanation of the numerous Oriental “lustres” or
quotations which fill many pages of Emerson’s and Thoreau’s
writings, as well as Ttye Dial, official organ of the communion
published from 1840 to 1844. The proverbs of strange peoples,
pithy sayings which reveal the sharp-edged observations and uni-
versal insights of men into the nature of the world and the moral
conduct of life, were valued for their undulled freshness and dis-
tilled proofs of the moral sentiment in man. Above all, when they
were most orphic, proverbs revealed the universality of moral
law and proved that the natural interest of man is in the ideal.
Thus, Emerson and his followers welcomed with joy the evi-
dence that the Over-Soul had spoken through men in divers times
and places. Throughout their lives they sought the echoes.

If the contemporaries of the Concordians found their thought
iconoclastic, it was because of their catholicity and not because
of any negation of essential Christianity. This can be amply dem-
onstrated in the writings of Thoreau. In his unpublished com-
monplace book entitled Paragraphs Mostly Original appears
a note which clearly suggests his attitude toward the world’s re-
ligions: “If the Roman— the Greek— and the Jew have a character
in history, so has the Hindoo. He may help to balance Asia which
is still too one-sided with its Palestine.” Thoreau was not essen-
tially anti-Christian. On April 3, 1850, he disclosed in a letter to
his friend Blake the result of his reading of the Christian scrip-
tures and his thoughts as he viewed the world: “I lived in Judaea

eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew there was such a
one as Christ among my contemporaries!” On another occasion
he wrote in the Week: “What are time and space to Christianity,
eighteen hundred years, and a new world?— that the humble life
of a Jewish peasant should have force to make a New York
bishop so bigoted.,, If such sentiments are anti-Christian, Thoreau
might have shouted, let the world make the most of them! A mind
like his had no interest in the purely temporal; it lived in worlds
wherein the great-hearted were always welcomed and could feel
at home. “I know, for instance,” he wrote in his Journal of 1852,
“that Sadi entertained once identically the same thought that I
do, and thereafter I can find no essential difference between Sadi
and myself. He is not Persian, he is not ancient, he is not strange
to me. By the identity of his thoughts with mine he still survives.”
In the light of such passages must be interpreted the often-quoted
confession of Thoreau to his literary executor, Harrison Blake:
“Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain
practice the yoga faithfully. ... To some extent, and at rare in-
tervals, even I am a yogi .” Manifestly such words from the pen
of a Yankee jack-of-all-trades cannot be taken literally. To think
of Thoreau contemplating his navel is preposterous. His real in-
terest can best be suggested by other phrases from his .writings:
To live a “balanced life, acceptable to nature and to God”; to
breathe a “divine perfume” and in serenity of mind and spirit to
“enjoy our inheritance”; to make way “with our petty selves, wish
no ill to anything. Apprehend no ill, cease to be but as the crystal
which reflects the ray”— that was his conception of Yoga. “There
is a kindred principle at the bottom of all affinities,” he wrote in
his Journal in 1840, half a decade before his retreat to Walden;
and afterwards he recorded that while in solitude he “dwelt
nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history
which had most attracted me.” The reasons for the orientalism of
the American Transcendentafists are to be found in these words. It
was not the result of a desire to escape anything. Theirs was an
intellectual quest, a search for historical evidence and experience
to vindicate the fundamental principles of their thought. The
most luminous pages of Emerson and Thoreau are filled with
proof that in the great Oriental scriptures they discovered their
affinities. To distinguish their mood from that of Henry Adams

and his contemporaries, it is necessary only to note that their
favorite Bible was the Bhagavadgita and not the books of the
Buddhists.

Kipling’s assertion that the East and the West will never meet
is the easy conclusion of an imperialist. He was the dean of An-
glo-Indian fiction writers and the composer of Tommy Atkins’
barrack-room songs. His interest was never in the realms Thoreau
occupied, or in the Arcadia of the world-weary, or in the the-
osophies which today are offered as a solution for all religious
contradictions. Clearly, at the end of the nineteenth century and
continuing into our own day, the Occidental imagination created
for itself two worlds which are romantically “oriental.” One was
a world of untrammeled nature, exotic mystery, and unchecked
passions. The other consisted of the mysticism of the Sufis, Bud-
dha, the Upanishadic seers, and Lao-tzu. It remained for the
Neo-Humanists of the twentieth century, particularly Irving Bab-
bitt and Paul Elmer More, to point out that the popular imagi-
nation of the West could not consistently live in both worlds.
“If the temple bells are calling the British private to ‘raise a
thirst,’ ” wrote Babbitt in an essay on “Buddha and the Occident”
published together with his translation of The Dhammapada , “to
what, one may enquire, are they calling the native Burman?”
Babbitt answers: “Certainly not to be ‘lazy’ and irresponsible . . .
a central admonition of Buddha may be summed up in the phrase:
Do not raise a thirst!”

Whatever may be said about Neo-Humanism, its amorphous
character, and the emphases which differ with its various expo-
nents, the writings of Babbitt and More clearly indicate a debt to
the Orient. As a conservative literary movement, it was character-
ized by an intense hatred of Rousseauism and both literary ‘nat-
uralism’ and exoticism. Modern fiction, said More, consisted
chiefly of explosions in cesspools. The majority of the Neo-
Humanist communion sought in the “wisdom of the past” for an
“inner-check” to curb contemporary interest in sex and natural
passion. As a religion, if Babbitt’s works may be taken as represent-
ative, Neo-Humanism was Puritanism superimposed upon a Bud-
dhistic sense of the worthlessness and impermanence of human
attachments, and a search for moral disciplines, a higher will and

imagination to balance the natural will, the senses and their appe-
tites, and the lower imagination.

For the historian interested in the values discovered by Occi-
dentals in the Orient, the Neo-Humanism of Babbitt and More
is a rewarding study. In their work there appeared, at last, an
“orientalism” based on sound scholarship and an acquaintance
with Sanskrit and Pali. Trained at Harvard under eminent philo-
logians, for long years thereafter continuing to study Oriental
languages with a view to translating and publishing their repre-
sentative classics for the public at large, and eventually bent on
the formulation of a social ethic if not a new religion for their
generation, these high priests of the movement released their
criticism of contemporary life through the most respectable jour-
nals of their day. Their quarrels during the 1920’s with literary
critics resulted in manifestoes and symposia like Humanism and
America , edited by Norman Foerster for the communion, and
The Critique of Humanism , edited by* C. Hartley Grattan.
Younger critics probably would have raised no voice in protest
if the Neo-Humanists had been satisfied with the role of anti-
quarians crying “Mahabharata” from rooftops. But they rose in
defense of modernism against the erudite attacks of the academi-
cians and characterized their utterances as “Mahabracadabra.”
Outwardly the controversy seemed to many observers a tempest
in a teapot. Seen in perspective, however, and studied in the light
of the complete writings of Babbitt and More, it can with justice
be regarded as the clash between an essentially Hindu sense of
human values and a civilization hell-bent for the economic debacle
of 1929.

VII

The lessons which may be drawn from a brief survey of the
past in Oriental-Occidental cultural relations are many and
varied. Few of the giants of European and American intellectual
history have thus far devoted themselves to a consideration of
Oriental cultures per se. Yet the Orient has increasingly colored
their intellectual and cultural milieu. This is the first fact to be
noted in conclusion.

It is in the popular literature of Europe and America that the
impact of the Orient upon our traditional thought may most

effectively be traced. Popular literature is a weathercock which
points the direction of all the winds of opinion that blow. This is
its significance. It is the expression in words of the intellectual
complex of an age, the summation of its culture in terms of ideas,
activities, and impulses to action, and the revealer of the cultural
dialects which paradoxically may appear side by side in the
minds of representative men in any generation. Without benefit
of the professoriat, average Occidentals have in varying ways
been “orientalized” since the beginnings of contacts between the
peoples of the East and the West.

To many this fact is the cause of alarm, and of a foreboding
that our culture may lose its integrity. It was not so for Boling-
broke, who realized before Wordsworth that human nature’s
daily food is infinitely varied and that there are both physical and
spiritual hungers. Bolingbroke’s Letters on the Study and Use
of History , published in 1752 at a time when the Orient was
unfolding before a generation priding itself on its cosmopolitan
outlook, contains a rational observation which should be con-
sidered by all who would encourage cultural exchange between
peoples or who, contrariwise, would preserve the “purity” of
their cultural heritage. “The study of history will prepare us for
action and observation,” Bolingbroke wrote. “History is the an-
cient author: experience is the modern language. We form our
taste on the first; we translate the sense and reason, we transfuse
the spirit and force: but we imitate only the particular graces of
the original; we miitate them according to the idiom of our own
tongue , that is, we substitute often equivalents in lieu of them,
and are far from affecting to copy them servilely.” Time has
demonstrated the truth of Bolingbroke’s observation.

A second fact is that there are more things in heaven and earth
than merchants dream of. “What have death, and the cholera, and
the immortal destiny of man, to do with the shipping interests?”
asked Thoreau on one occasion, and his question suggests prob-
lems too frequently ignored. In contrast to his view it may be
noted that in the September, 1933, Pacific Affairs a Dutch econ-
omist wrote: “I am unwilling to allow any artificial separation of
the cultural factor from other factors, and am even convinced
that I am right in posing the thesis that the relations between
Eastern and Western peoples are primarily economic and that

cultural activities are only an appendage .” For such forthright
honesty there can be nothing but admiration, although one may
doubt the writer’s knowledge of cultural history and his sense of
the relative importance and permanence of the forces loose in the
world today.

The dangerous tendency of the typical Occidental to self-
glorification and pride is abetted by many compelling facts which
divert attention from his own debt to the Orient. It is necessary
only to mention the influence of modern science, education,
forms of government, and industrialism upon Asiatic life to
realize what the white man has done to his neighbors. In India
and China factories now belch smoke as black as any in Pitts-
burgh and Manchester; labor unions provoke strikes hitherto
unknown in the so-called brooding East; the imported cinema has
subverted native modes of life and sense of values. Obviously
nothing comparable can be found for the influence of the Orient
on the Occident. Commercial relations appear dominant, and the
cultural traffic seems mainly bound in one direction. But such
facts blind the Westerner as he faces the dawn of a new age
in which ideas, philosophies, and theories of art will embark upon
conquests of their own, and settle colonies without the aid of
economic processes.

Certainly few of the Occidental thinkers and writers who have
been challenged by the Orient have had the remotest interest in
trade. They have overleaped geographical and racial frontiers
chiefly because they discovered artistic, intellectual, spiritual
values which they admired. Whether the resulting manifestations
of “orientalism” in European culture are to be deplored or con-
sidered trivial is an academic question. That they are prophetic
cannot be doubted. The process of appropriation cannot be
thwarted by those who fear that it will neutralize the essential
genius of a culture. If the materialistic civilization of the world
will continue to be enriched and the physical life of all peoples
made more comfortable, as the physical resources of continents,
from materia medica to raw materials, are widely distributed, it
is to be expected that men everywhere will similarly appropriate
from the world’s store other values which may make their lives
more beautiful or give it depth.

A third fact is suggested by Doctor Johnson’s observation that

“the good and evil of eternity are too ponderous for the wings
of wit.” This is demonstrated in any popular literature which re-
flects an Oriental influence. Much ignorance and misuse of Ori-
ental thought prevails, and some fearful and amusing facts are
to be found in the record. For example, an American insurance
company recently advertised: “Buddha, who was born a prince,
gave up his name, succession, and heritage to attain serenity. But
we do not need to give up the world; we have only to see a life-
insurance agent who can sell us serenity for the future, the most
direct step to peace of mind.” Such words might suggest that
America is the land of the half-educated. Only those with lim-
ited imaginations, however, will think of them as a reflection of
credulity or ignorance alone. They indicate, rather, a want of
stability. As men sense the artificiality and limitations of their
lives today, feeling like trees with thin rootage in a high wind,
they grope for sound footing and hunger for certitude. “Freud
has unfortunately overlooked the fact,” wrote Jung in Modern
Man in Search of a Soidy “that man has never yet been able sin-
glehanded to hold his own against the powers of darkness— that
is, of the unconscious. Man has always stood in need of the
spiritual help which each individual’s own religion held out to
him. ... It is this which lifts him out of his distress.”

The Christian clergy may profitably consider the reasons be-
hind the flourishing of Orient-inspired cults in Europe and Amer-
ica. Apparently in their parishes are hungry sheep who look up
and are not fed; and many find in the exotic gospels of swamis
some therapeutic value which they miss in their own religious
heritage. The Thoreauvian insistence that the world is round,
not lopsided, and that the Orient has both a character in history
and a contribution to make, is a challenge to all who would be
healers of souls that find no comfort in logic or Christian apolo-
getics or tradition, whose spiritual problems are untouched by
social gospels, and who desire above all else to believe that the
enterprise of life is a worthwhile process and that in the end
man will not dissolve like snowflakes in the stream of material-
ism. Underlying our contemporary faith in the curative powers
of the psychoanalyst is the persisting desire to believe that man’s
spirit is continuous with a larger spirituality from whose univer-
sality are to be derived confidence, courage, and cosmic security.

Men who feel so find that the psychiatric therapies directed to-
ward the adjustment of the outward business of life are also often
superficial and inadequate. The intelligentsia may scorn them;
but they are legion. They are those who in the truest sense live
in a culture, and it is in their minds that the most significant meet-
ting of the East and the West is taking place.

A fourth fact is that among other sincere, thoughtful, and edu-
cated Occidentals there has also grown the belief that the world’s
great religions are not hostile systems but are revealers of funda-
mental psychological needs and universal moral laws. Some con-
sequently seek to reconcile contradictions in the world’s faiths.
Others find satisfaction in their great separate affirmations, be-
lieving that the best in the universe is the revelation of the deep-
est or most beautiful in it. A hymn by George Matheson, sung
in many liberal churches of Protestant Christendom, serves as an
illustration:

Thine is the mystic life great India craves;

Thine is the Parsee’s sin-destroying beam;

Thine is the Buddhist’s rest from tossing waves;

Thine is the empire of vast China’s dream.

Thine is the Roman’s strength without his pride;

Thine is the Greek’s glad world without its graves;

Thine is Judea’s law with love beside,

The truth that censures and the grace that saves.

Such lines suggest no careless heterodoxy, and the Oriental
allusions clearly represent much more than mere poetic ornamen-
tation. Indeed they were written in 1890 by the poet who gave
to his fellow-believers the better-known hymn, “O Love That
Will Not Let Me Go.” There are increasingly deeper levels of
experience which the ordinary folk of our workaday world must
face. Duplicating in their own lives the varied experience of the
race, it is inevitable that they should also discover, as knowledge
of the great Oriental cultures increases, essential insights and
values in all departments of human endeavor which they will
make their own. The vaunted modernity of the present genera-
tion consists more in what it does than in what it believes. To
future generations, as to our own, the records of the past are

clearly a source of something more significant than amusing read-
ing for an idle summer's day.

So long as we can imagine, there will be recurrent turning to
the Orient for the material satisfactions of this world, for literary
themes and artistic design, for the foundations of utopias, and for
passports to the cities of God. As mankind struggles for the
brotherhood of men, the trend will be toward the integration
of the individual in the unity of the world’s experience.

The sense of the past is therefore plain. The task of interna-
tional democracy is to underwrite its dream with a world-wide
political organization. Any structure it might raise, however,
will be but a house of cards if it is not cemented with knowledge
of the interdependence of peoples and their contributions to the
common heritage of mankind. The spiritual foundations upon
which the world society of the future is to be built must consist
of a knowledge of all the affinities which exist between peoples
and the ways in which they may complement each other. The
history of the cultural discovery of the Orient by the West is
simply the story of a search for values which will give life
flavor, zest, and completeness. It contains much that is silly and
absurd, but that is inevitable in any record that began with man’s
ignorance about his fellows and reaches from spices to God.

Curt Sachs

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN MUSIC

AT THE beginning of our era, the Greek geographer
Strabo stated: “Those writers who have consecrated the whole
of Asia, as far as India, to Dionysus, derive the greater part of
music from there. And one writer says, ‘striking the Asiatic
cithara’; another calls flutes ‘Berecynthiaa’ and ‘Phrygian’; and
some of the instruments have been called by barbarian names,
‘nablas,’ ‘sambyke,’ ‘barbitos,’ ‘magadis,’ and several others.” 1

This is the earliest acknowledgment of Western indebtedness
to Asiatic music.

Strabo could have added: that the two main tonalities and
modes after the Dorian were called Phrygian and Lydian; that
not “some,” but all Greek instruments had Asiatic names, includ-
ing the two leading lyres kithara and lyra ; that the “national”
Dorian mode itself was a filled-in enharmonic mode, as they
called it, with two major thirds and two semitones in the scale
of seven notes, and that this enharmonic mode still exists in
Mongolia, India, Java, Bali, and, above all, as the “national” mode
of Japan; and many other details.

Strabo also should have mentioned the peculiar ideology of
Greek music from the later fifth century on, with the theory of
ethos as the climax. It teaches that music must not be looked at
as an indifferent matter of entertainment. It is intimately con-
nected with the Universe and acts on man’s character, either
stimulating and exciting, or soothing and even enfeebling. More
specifically, it gives courage and mental vigor or inspires religious
devotion, or lasciviousness, or effeminacy, according to the tonali-
ties, rhythms, and instruments used. Therefore the nation is in-

terested in an educational system that gives music the first place,
but, while it stresses desirable qualities, eliminates those types
likely to damage morale. However, exactly the same ideas had
existed in China long before, and Confucius, who lived a hundred
years before Plato, expressed them nearly in the words that the
great Hellenic philosopher used. Plato himself, who probably did
not know how much he owed to Chinese thinking, referred to
the priests of Egypt as his teachers in music as a problem of edu-
cation and res publica ?

Doubtless, Asiatic elements have contributed to the music of
prehistoric Europe long before Greek and Roman times. Unfor-
tunately, most problems of prehistoric relations between the two
continents have not yet been solved; however, anthropology and
history are agreed on several migrations westward. There is, for
example, the so-called birch-bark civilization (to which the alp-
horn belongs), shared by certain peoples of Siberia and those
of the European Alps, and also the remarkable migration that
brought the horse and religious horse rituals to Europe. It is
hardly possible that such vast movements, in which objects of
everyday life and beliefs with their ceremonials were included,
should not have carried the songs of worship and dance from the
old to the new homes in the West.

Recently, the author was indeed able to show that the typical
style of old-European melody, preserved in ten thousands of
medieval notations and folksongs of our days all over the con-
tinent, from Iceland and Scandinavia to Spain and the Balkans,
follows the same principle of chains of thirds, alternately major
and minor, on which the music of the Ugro-Finnish peoples and
other North Asiatic groups are based.3*4 That these chains of
thirds reappear among North American Indians, who likewise
derive from archaic North Asia, is a valuable confirmation. Some
years before my research in prehistoric thirds, I had outlined a
method of musical chronology in ancient Europe.5 Work in this
direction would be one of the most fascinating tasks of musical
archaeology.

Another question of prehistory is whether there has been a
formative influence from Asia on Mediterranean music long be-

fore the times of Greece and Arabia. The author often heard
vintage songs in Anacapri above Capri, which were quite un-
European both in style and in the way in which they were sung;
and one should keep in mind that Anacapri in its building style
still shows the traces of Phoenician colonization. The same is true
of Balearic songs, of which Catalan scientific missions have made
an impressive number of records (preserved in the phonographic
archives at Barcelona); they, too, have nothing to do with Euro-
pean music and hardly anything with Moorish music. Thus, the
tentative suggestion of an extremely old, say, Phoenician style
might at least be acceptable as a working hypothesis. A careful
investigation on all Mediterranean isles should be made as soon
as possible after the war before it is too late; the results would
be as important for the history of mankind as any archaeological
excavation.

Ill

The earliest foothold for a discussion of post-Grecian influence
from the East is the liturgical music of both the Byzantine and
the Roman Churches. Neglecting the Christian music of Byzan-
tium, which has been much less important in the history of West-
ern music, we turn to the melodies of the Roman Church.

The cantillation of the Catholic Church has been called the
Gregorian chant or chorale, in honor of Pope Gregory I the
Great (590-604) who is credited with unifying and codifying
the musical liturgy. The melodies and the singing style that the
pope had written down in a definite and obligatory form had
come from various stocks: Italian and Greek folksongs, but, above
all, the Jewish synagogue. Some melodies of the latter stock must
have existed in the Palestinian homeland before 600 b.c., since the
late Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Professor at the Hebrew Union Col-
lege in Cincinnati, found the exact counterparts of several Gre-
gorian melodies in the isolated Jewish congregations of Yemen
in Arabia, Babylonia, and Persia, which had been separated from
Palestine and the further development of Jewish ceremonial music
after the destruction of the First Temple and the abduction of
the Jews into the Babylonian Exile (597 b.c.).

The Oriental elements of the Gregorian chant clashed with the
quite different traditions and potentialities of Western music

with its chains of thirds, its syllabic nature, and its ever-growing
tendency toward harmony and polyphony. They had to tol-
erate the infiltration of third melodies; they had to accept the
dissection of the most fluid coloraturas into syllabic configura-
tions with additional texts, because, as Roman church singers in
Charlemagne’s time complained, the Franconians with an artless,
barbaric, bestial voice crushed the melodies in their throats; and
nine hundred years ago, the tradition of Gregorian rhythm was
lost for good when part singing began to undermine the free
melodic style of Eastern cantillation.

Yet, the ascendancy of Gregorian music was tremendous. With
the fourth as an essential interval, the church modes gave a new
structural principle that the West had little known before and
that became helpful when the native chains of thirds were slowly
twisted into octaves of major or minor character. Gregorian chant
also preserved its innate independence from metric patterns and
the fetters of beaten time, its freer forms, and its even and yet
dynamic flow. This kind of singing and shaping, with which
medieval men were familiar from early childhood on, has prob-
ably had a decisive influence on the secular solo music of Europe.
The art of the troubadours , trouveres , and minnesdngery that
musicologists of our time have mistakenly interpreted as run-
ning in an eternal limping triple time, is in the most important
treatise of the thirteenth century expressly characterized as noti
ita praecise wiensnrata (‘not so precisely measured’), that is, just
as free in rhythm as the Gregorian chorale. This explains why
all the secular songs of that time were written down in the same
rhythmically non-committal notation that the chant has used,
though the composers had a ‘mensural’ notation at hand.

This notation, too, had been devised in the western Orient and
was only later adapted to the specific needs of European music.
Temple musicians of the Eastern worlds between the Mediterra-
nean and the Indian Ocean had developed various notations in
order to secure an unadulterated and unadulterable singing of the
holy texts in times of crisis, when oral tradition was in danger of
being lost. They were different in their symbols, but similar in
principle. Most of them ignored the single, isolated note (c or d
or e), but provided signs for short, ever-recurring ‘melodicles*
or basic turns out of which the melody was composed in the way

a mosaic is put together— a second, or third, or fourth,, upward
or downward, empty or with fillers, straight or bent, plain or
trilled. To put it philosophically, the ancient Oriental composers
felt that melody, as a sounding movement, was composed of
movements, not of stops. Best known of the symbols are the
little hooks, dashes, and angles, called nginot or masoretic accents
of Palestinian-Jewish cantillation, which still are printed above or
below the corresponding syllables of the text in all Hebrew
Bibles.

The neumes that European monks used for many centuries in
the holy books of Christian service were an outgrowth of the old
accents. There was the pes or podatus , a step upward; the clivisy
a step downward; the scandicus , an ascending triplet; the clima -
cuSy a descending triplet; the climacus resupmus flexus, a quin-
tuplet of a particular form; and a score of other combinations of
dots and vertical and oblique dashes to be written above the texts.
Neither did they express the pitches, nor the exact distances and
intervals, or the relative time values of the individual notes; the
direction of the melodic movement was paramount.

Still, there were certain difficulties in imposing such notation
6n the West, even on Western church music. Here again, the syl-
labic tradition of most European countries was often imperative
enough to chop the easy flow of Gregorian melodies into units
of a more stationary character, and these in turn required suitable
means of writing and memorizing. For notation, a way out was
found in the eleventh century when the neumes were written on
staves, which would be modern had they not had four lines only
(as still in today’s antiphonaries, hymnals, and missals): every
neume is split into two or more stationary notes the exact pitches
of which had to be strictly observed in singing.

Assistance in memorizing was particularly necessary because
from note to note there could be the distance now of a whole
tone, now of a semitone; because the place of the semitone among
whole tones differed in the eight church modes, and sometimes
even within the same mode; and because any mistake would de-
stroy the tonality of the mode. As a remedy, so we learn, Guido
of Arezzo (d. ca. 1050) invented solmization: the choir boys
memorized the melodies by singing them, not with their texts, but
on the since \yell-known syllables ut re mi fa sol lay which had to

of Chinoiserie in garden architecture.

Old Battersea Bridge,” lithograph by James A. McNeill Whistler. Courtesy , Brooklyn Museum.

/ilight Moon at Ryogoku,” wood-block color print by Utagawa Hiroshige. Courtesy,

plate 4 “Morning Glories in Flowers and Buds,” wood-block
color print by Katsushika Hokusai. Courtesy , Brooklyn Museum .

plate 5 “Les Grenouilles,” woodcut by Charles Houdard. Cour-
tesy, Brooklyn Museum .

be alined so that any semitone fell upon the step mi-fa. The word
“invented,” however, is inadequate. Not only had practically all
Oriental nations known some kind of solmization (although on
different syllables); not only did it play an outstanding role in
the musical education of Greece. Abbot Odo of Cluny, who died
in 942— more than a hundred years before Guido of Arezzo— had
in his Tonarius mentioned certain queer names of notes, and
among them re> scembs , caemar > caphe , asel, which, though
slightly disfigured by the Latin-writing author, are easily recog-
nizable as Semitic words— particularly scembs , the Arabic word
for ‘sun’ being shams or shems, and the Hebrew word, shemesh.
Thus, European monks knew Oriental solmization before 1000;
and this fact becomes even more remarkable as the only three-
letter syllable in Guido’s solmization, sol, means ‘sun’ in Latin.

Guido also is generally credited with having devised the fa-
mous ‘hand,’ a method used far into modern times to facilitate
solmization in melodies of a more elaborate character. This is the
method: every note throughout the whole range had a fixed place
on one of the various joints of the fingers; so the pupils, touching
them with a finger of the other hand while they sang, were pre-
vented from going astray. However, this method, too, had prece-
dents in the Orient. The Chinese have used the hand to memorize
the four types of tonal inflection in their language and, conse-
quently, their music: they touch the third phalange of the fore-
finger to indicate the level tone; the tip of the same finger for the
rising tone; the tip of the ring finger for the falling tone; and the
third phalange of the same finger for the dialectal (and musically
meaningless) shortening of any of the foregoing movements. One
of the Hindu methods of memorizing the cantillation of the
holy Vedas was even more similar to Guido’s hand; with the
right index, the singers touched a certain place on the left hand
where the note to be sung was situated. There were five such
places: the small finger, for the lowest note; the lower end of the
forefinger, for the following note; then the ring finger; and fi-
nally the index again for both the fourth and fifth notes.

A paragraph on the Oriental sources of the Gregorian chant,
its performance, and its auxiliary means, would not be complete
without discussing antiphony. Hebrew and other West-Oriental
poems were conceived in a peculiar parallelism— parallelismus

memborum is the scientific term— every half verse being answered
by another half verse which expressed either an intensification of
the first idea or else an antinomy, not exactly in the same poetic
meters, but in similar words. The beginning of the well-known
psalm Nineteenth, for example, reads:

The heavens declare the glory of God,

And the firmament showeth His handiwork,

Day unto day uttereth speech,

And night unto night revealeth knowledge.

Such parallel lines were sung either by two alternating half
choruses or by a soloist and an answering chorus. In both forms,
alternation passed to the Christian Church, as antipho?iy and as
response . Antiphony played so important a role in the Oriental
church that one of the Church Fathers, St. Basil, who lived in
the fourth century, defended the singing X>f the psalms both an-
tiphonally and responsorially, as did “the Egyptians, Libyans,
Thebans, Palestinians, Phoenicians, Syrians, and the dwellers by
the Euphrates’’— that is, all congregations in the Western Orient.
In the same century. Pope Damasus (366-384) introduced an-
tiphony into the Roman liturgy. The Church had kept it for about
eleven hundred years when the famous Flemish director of mu-
sic at St. Mark’s in Venice, Adriaen Willaert (d. 1562), adapted
the old Oriental-Gregorian antiphony to extra-liturgical works
written in the polyphonic style of the Palestrina age: two half
choruses were stationed in the two organ lofts, which, in St.
Mark’s, face each other, and sang, now alternately, now together,
in sharp contrasts and in mystic chiaroscuro . This innovation met
the stylistic needs of the later sixteenth century so well that
Venetian and Roman composers did not hesitate to follow Wil-
laert’s example and to use the polychoral style both in religious
and secular music. Often, the choruses were of different pitches,
one clearer, without basses, one darker, without sopranos; or else,
one was entirely or partially vocal, and the other instrumental;
if both were instrumental, one of them would be composed of
brass instruments, that is, cornets and trombones, and one of
bowed strings. However, the grandiosity and love for color and
shades after the Renaissance and particularly in the Baroque did

not rest satisfied with two choruses. Three and four choruses be-
came frequent, and many times even four did not suffice; indeed,
Queen Elizabeth’s court organist, Thomas Tallis (d. 1585) wrote
a motet, Spem in aliam nunquam habuiy for no less than forty
voice parts in eight choruses. The polychoral climax seems to
have been reached sometime in the first half of the eighteenth
century with a composition for forty-eight voices by Giuseppe
Ottavio Pitoni (d. 1743), maestro di cappella at St. Peter’s and
the Lateran. It certainly must have been embarrassing to give
adequate places to so many choruses; but, making a virtue of ne-
cessity, the composers added to the effect by fully utilizing all ad-
vantages that the architecture of churches and palaces granted.
Thus, Virgilio Mazzocchi (d. 1628) wrote a much admired, im-
pressive musicone for St. Peter’s in Rome and placed its twelve
or sixteen choruses, partly on the ground floor under the dome,
partly on the gallery on the level of the roof, and partly in the
dizzying height of the lantern above the dome.

But this was a long, long way from the simple antiphony that
the Bible describes: “And the women sang one to another in
their play, and said: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his
ten thousands.’ ”

Two relics of Oriental trends in church music in the first thou-
sand years a.d. are the organ and bell chimes, such as the one on
the tower of Riverside Church at New York. The organ seems
to have been created in the second century b.c. in Egypt; small
specimens reached Western Europe as gifts from Eastern rulers
about a thousand years later in the times of Pipin and Charle-
magne. Bell chimes came to Europe about the same time and were
often depicted in the miniatures of psalters to illustrate the last
psalm —Laudate Eum cum cymbalis—the (not quite appropriate)
name cymbala being the one that the monks gave to the bell
chime.

The arrival of the organ and the bell chime were important, in-
deed decisive, as they were the first instruments with fixed pitches
in the West, able, and actually used, to introduce fixed standard
pitches and intervals where players of fretless stringed instru-
ments and singers had been blindly groping from note to note.
Organs made constant retuning imperative, and both organs and
bell chimes were at an ever-faster rate copied and reproduced to

meet the increasing demand of monasteries and churches. This
implied recipes, experiments, and mathematical calculation. In
other words, medieval Europe had for the first time to face the
grave problem how to establish music on fixed ratios instead of
caprice and anarchy. To appreciate the vital importance of the
two instruments, one must have seen how many among the trea-
tises on music written throughout the Middle Ages deal with
this problem.

The following tide of Oriental influence came from the civili-
zation of Islam, from nations speaking Arabic and Persian, and it
lasted during the almost eight hundred years of Moorish and
Arabian domination in Spain (711-1492), in which Oriental cul-
ture was not only combated, but also eagerly imitated and ab-
sorbed.

All the instruments that wc have used' in modern times once
came from Asia, some via Byzantium, some as a consequence of
the crusades, but most of them through the Iberian gateway:
flutes, oboes, and clarinets; bagpipes, trumpets, and kettledrums;
the violin, the mandolin, and the guitar; cymbals, xylophones, and
glockenspiele . Even the harpsichord and the piano, apparently so
fully European, are Western only as far as keyboards and actions
are concerned; the instruments themselves on which these devices
have been grafted are the psaltery and the dulcimer of the Mid-
dle East. The poetic literature of the fourteenth century is full of
Arabic names of instruments: canon , en?norache> naquaires , atam-
boresy guitarra moriscay rabe moriscOy exabcvay albogony anafles ,
atabaleSy cors sarrazinoisy and many others. The lute still bears an
Arabic name ( abud ); the word tambour is Persian; pandora and
bandurria can be traced back to Sumerian terms.

Europe’s achievement has been the variation and improvement
of Asiatic instruments— either by altering and fusing Oriental
types, as with the bassoon, the saxophone, and the hybrid brasses
of the cornet and the tuba families; or by perfecting their techni-
cal contrivances, ranges, and sonorities. However, these fusions
and perfections set in at a comparatively late time, at the end of
the Middle Ages, when the musical situation had posed problems
to European instrument makers that their Oriental predecessors

<54

had not known— particularly the extension of the musical range
and the ever-growing polyphonic and harmonic tendencies.

Long after that time of de-Orientalization, Europe still had
the old Oriental bipartition into musica alta and rmisica bassa—
outdoor and indoor music. Clamorous, indeed deafening was the
outdoor music of shrill oboes, brasses, and stick-beaten drums;
the indoor music of strings and flutes was soft, restrained, limpid,
yet more trenchant than modern Western music is. The poets of
the fourteenth century keep them carefully apart, and so do the
painters: on the Sienese Lippo Memmi’s little “Coronation of the
Virgin” in the museum at Munich, the indoor music is strictly
separated from the outdoor band.

I just dared to characterize the indoor ensemble as soft and yet
slightly more trenchant than modern Western music. Indeed, the
similarity of such ensembles, recorded by either poets or painters,
with groups that we hear today in North Africa, Syria, or Iraq
is so close that we are able to compare the timbres of medieval
European and modern Arabian music.

Even vocal music must have had the Oriental character: the
angels forming chorus on van Eyck’s famous altarpiece at St.
Bavo’s in Ghent ( ca . 1425), obviously modeled after the choir
singers of Flemish cathedrals at the beginning of the fifteenth
century, betray the nasaling style of the East in the wrinkles
around their noses and mouths (a trait that commercial photo-
graphs of the painting rarely show).

It has generally been claimed that a wandering instrument car-
ries its music along, in other words, that instruments transplanted
into new climates were prone to retain the customary styles that
they had possessed in their home lands. But all attempts at finding
direct traces of Oriental melodies, forms, or styles in Europe
proper have failed, including the latest ones by Henry George
Farmer. The reason is evident. Most Oriental instruments were
detained many decades, and often centuries, in the Iberian quar-
antine before they were allowed to cross the Pyrenees and Had all
the time necessary to acclimate themselves and to conform to the
style of Europe.

At the time the instruments were absorbed, Europe had defi-
nitely shifted from unaccompanied to accompanied melody, and
this process had necessarily destroyed the characteristic features

<55

of melody in its proper sense. It was then that organs, mono-
chords, and psalteries were given keyboards, and that Persian
lutes lost the quill plectra with which they had been plucked,
since either transformation facilitated chordal and polyphonic
playing. Under such conditions, Arabian melody could hardly
influence the music of the West.

There might be one curious exception in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, particularly in France and, of all things, in
polyphony. The phenomenon itself has a decent Greek name:
isometry . It means that a certain melody follows two different
cyclic laws. The melody itself or, better, the set of notes that
form the melody might be, say, ten measures long and then be re-
peated as often as the text requires. But there also is a certain
rhythmical pattern— a peculiar arrangement of, say, half notes,
dotted quarter notes and regular quarter notes, which in a similar
way is repeated over and over again to the end of the piece. The
rhythmical period does not necessarily coifrcide with the melodic
period— it would be twelve or sixteen measures long and therefore
start its repetition when the melody is already in its third or sev-
enth measure; and its second repetition would begin still later in
the second repetition of the melody. Thus the two periods over-
lap each time in a different way and the notes of the melody ap-
pear each time in a different rhythmical arrangement.

Rhythmical patterns have never been a trait of European
music; but they are of basic importance in the Islamic Orient,
and particularly in India, where all pieces are headed by the indi-
cation of both their melodic pattern or rdga and their rhythmical
pattern or tala . Moreover, the medieval musicians, writing in
Latin, called the rhythmical period taleay a word non-Latin, in-
deed un-Latin, but closely reminiscent of the correct Sanskrit
name, tala. The melodic pattern was given a true Latin name,
color; but the Sanskrit term, rdgay also meant ‘color/ This is so
striking a coincidence that a connection between the Indian and
the European conceptions can hardly be doubted.

There was hardly a trace of Oriental influence in the follow-
ing four or five hundred years. However, European self-suffi-

ciency changed with the exotic fashions of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, which concentrated on themes Chinese and
Turkish. At about 1700, when Turkish armies no longer threat-
ened the peace of Europe, the armies of the West began to imi-
tate the Turkish bands, the intoxication of which they had ex-
perienced in more than two hundred years of warfare in Eastern
Europe. The newly organized ‘Turkish’ or ‘Janissaries’ music of
European regiments provided a first stronghold to noisy percus-
sion, such as bass drums, cymbals, triangles, and jingling cres-
cents, which before had been used only as a rmisica irregularis
for masquerades and similar occasions.

Slowly, military percussion made its way to the regular or-
chestra. Cymbals had already appeared in Nicolaus Adam
Strungk’s opera Esther (Hamburg 1680); and triangles were used
in 1710 in the Hamburg opera and 1717 in the court orchestra
at Dresden. At first, they merely provided local color for subjects
taken from the Orient, which from the eighteenth century on
have so much attracted the composers of operas, and particu-
larly of comic operas— Gluck’s Cadi dupe ( 1761 ) and La Rencon-
tre imprevue (1764), Mozart’s Seraglio (1781), Weber’s Abu
Hassan ( 1 8 1 1 ) and Oberon (1825), Peter Cornelius’ Barber of
Bagdad (1858), Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (1904) and Turandot
(1924), Henry Rabaud’s Marouf (1914), and hundreds more of
‘Oriental’ operas and ballets.

The Romantic period, eager to add new shades to its musical
palette, did not hesitate to give permanent seats to the guests
from Asia, even when no Oriental theme was in need of exotic
colors. From the first quarter of the nineteenth century on, the
Turkish music is dissolved in its components and has merged
with the orchestra.

The same is true of the symphonic orchestra. In Joseph
Haydn’s Military Symphony (1794), the Turkish music was
still a merely characterizing factor; in the last movement of
Beethoven’s Ninth , it was no longer military, but in a more gen-
eral way suggestive of enthusiasm and resolute energy; the Ro-
mantic symphony, like the Romantic opera, embodied it whole-
heartedly as a coloristic agent.

It is obvious that the composers of Oriental operas and sym-
phonies did not rest satisfied with Turkish music, but also tried

<57

to orientalize their melodies— in the eighteenth century, as they
thought Oriental melody might be, and in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, as they knew it was. But from the point of
view of our survey, it is entirely meaningless that Weber wrote
his Turandot overture on a genuine Chinese melody taken from
some book on China; that Cornelius indulged in the augmented
seconds of the Arabian maqam Higdz; or that Puccini’s Madame
Butterfly sings in the major thirds of Japanese pentatonism. They
drew from Oriental music without transforming the music of the
West.

But the general trends in Western music around 1900 became
different, at first in France. The world’s fairs at Paris from 1889
to 1900 presented excellent examples of Oriental music from all
parts of North Africa and Asia. Certainly not for the first time.
But European music had entered a critical stage in which sensi-
tivity and receptivity were extraordinarily increased. On the one
hand, Wagner’s Tristan had irrevocably dissolved the narrow-
limited dualism of major and minor; on the other hand, the
young Frenchmen tended away from the opaque grandiloquence
of the German school and from both Classicism and Romanticism;
the fundaments of the nineteenth century were shaken, and the
world was waiting for something new to be born. Oriental music
was no longer listened to with the supercilious self-satisfaction of
the arrive , but with the humbler eagerness of the unprejudiced
open mind. As a little-known pioneer, Louis-Albert Bourgault-
Ducoudray in Paris published Greek and Oriental melodies in the
1870’s, “hoping to extend the horizon among the musicians of
Europe.” Some twenty years later, Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
is said to have taken his famous whole tone scale from a Javanese
orchestra at the world’s fair, which is probably true with the re-
striction that the Javanese salendro scale (which must be the one
that inspired the French master) consisted of five more or less
equal six-fifths of tones, while Debussy’s scale comprised six
whole tones. But the true Oriental experience might have been
different.

Faced with Oriental music, the world of 1900 began to realize
the limitations of Western music. Maybe for the first time, it

dawned upon the European musician and critic that the great
achievement in harmony, polyphony, and orchestration had
meant sacrifices in other fields; that the unbelievable riches of
modes which the Orient still possessed had burnt down to major
and minor; that under the strait) acket of harmonic function mel-
ody proper had become a poor connecting line between related
chords; that rhythm had become an all too simple time-beating.

It was a wholesome shock to realize that our music was not the
only real thing in the middle of what we had thought to be the
primitive babble of less advanced nations. And it seems that
the shock has even been stronger in this country than in Europe;
America’s estrangement from chordal music is more radical. Her
predilection for modern Russian and Negro music hints to the
Orient, though only indirectly: both the Russians and the Afri-
can Negroes have in thousands of years absorbed Oriental influ-
ences, and both have brought us a restoration of innate motor
impulse and melodic freedom. We will not be foolish enough to
imitate Oriental music or to forget the glorious traditions of our
own world. But we are trying to widen our scope and re-win
grounds lost and forgotten— lost and forgotten in the lands of the
West, but alive and faithfully kept in the East.

Laurance P. Roberts

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN
ART

CHINA

RELATIONS between Europe and China have a long
but broken history, dating back to the third century before
Christ with the Han dynasty. In the beginning Chinese silk, car-
ried overland across Central Asia and distributed to the Mediter-
ranean world by the Parthians, was the medium of exchange.
This silk, quite literally worth its weight in gold, was, until the
outbreak of present hostilities in the Pacific, one of the major ex-
ports of the East to the Occident.

Wars and civil unrest and the resulting unsettled conditions
closed this overland trade at different times, though it was thriv-
ing in the T‘ang dynasty (618-906) and again under the Yuan or
Mongol dynasty (1260-1368). But with the coming of the Ming
Emperors of China, who did not rule over Central Asia as the
Mongols had done, the overland trade route was once more
closed and it was left to the Arabs to carry on a combined land
and sea trade through the Near East and the Indian Ocean. The
Portuguese as a result of their exploratory voyage in the late six-
teenth century were the first European nation to open direct sea-
borne trade via the Cape of Good Hope to Canton. The English,
French, and Dutch soon followed with their East India Com-
panies founded, respectively, in 1600, 1664, and 1602, with the
English eventually getting the largest share of the business. The
United States entered the trade in the early nineteenth century.
Its clipper ships, which were faster than the English East India-
men, made the American flag famous in the Far East and soon

flooded the Eastern seaboard states with a variety of Chinese
goods.

Finds of Han textiles on the overland trade routes and four-
teenth century Chinese silk stuffs still in European church treas-
uries bear witness to the continuing importance of silk as the
primary export from China to the West. But the influence of
Chinese silk was much greater on the economic life of the Occi-
dent than on the artistic. Even in the Renaissance the designs
found on Western silks are those of the Near East.

Next in importance to silk as an export commodity were the
porcelains and ceramics. The presence of T‘ang ceramics at Sa-
marra near Bagdad, a capital of the Abbasid Khalifs from 838
to 883 a.d., shows an early regard for the superior Chinese ware.
Under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), porcelain began to rival
silk as an export commodity since its weight and bulk were not
the problem to the new sea traffic that they had been to overland
caravans. During the last forty years, examples of Ming celadon
ware have been found in the Philippines, in India, on the West
coast of Africa, and on the narrowest part of the Malay peninsula
over which they were transshipped from the Gulf of Siam to the
Bay of Bengal. The famous Wareham bowl in England, dated
ca. 1530 by its English silver mount, is of celadon, and in the Na-
tional Museum in Constantinople is a famous collection of blue
and white ware, begun by the Sultans of Turkey during the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth cen-
tury, Augustus the Strong of Saxony, a contemporary of K‘ang
Hsi in China, made a large collection of famille verte, and Mme.
de Pompadour, as befitted one of the biggest stockholders in the
French East India Company, did her best to popularize Chinese
Porcelains. Eventually in the late seventeenth and early eigh-
teenth century blue and white became so popular that the manu-
facturers of Delft ware in Holland quickly copied it to save part
of the home market for themselves. It was Johann F. Bottger’s
discovery in 1709 of the method of making porcelain that saved
the European ceramic industry from the overwhelming Chinese
competition. A number of the more popular shapes and designs
continued to be Chinese, and Chinese porcelain remained in great
demand.

The cargo ships in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries were laden with dinner sets, mantel garnitures, punch
bowls, and a variety of other household porcelains as well as with
lacquered furniture, wallpaper, silks, and ivory trinkets. It was
these household wares which, in the eighteenth century, most
affected European taste and finally produced a fanciful but
wholly charming “style chinoise” in all forms of decorative art.
This “Chinoiserie,” with overtones of present political signifi-
cance, has but lately been revived, and the familiar design of the
small Chinese figures against a background of pagodas and wil-
lows is once again seen in fabrics, wall coverings, prints, and por-
celains. Although these are Occidental interpretations of the
Orient with no real understanding of the aesthetics or philosophy
behind them, they have much that is truly delightful. Thus by
the end of the great days of the China Trade in the mid-nine-
teenth century, supercargoes on the clipper ships and the Chi-
nese merchants in Canton had spread Chinese goods, even though
in many cases deliberately manufactured to standards of Euro-
pean taste and for the European market, to the homes of Europe
and America.

Despite all this trade the importers had not dealt in fine porce-
lains made for the Chinese taste, old bronzes, paintings, or samples
of calligraphy. It is probable that no Chinese objet (Tart was ever
brought home as a curio by a New England captain, for such ob-
jects were not for export, even if the captain had had the taste
to appreciate them. It remained for the art dealer, both Occi-
dental and Oriental, to take advantage of the distressed economic
conditions in China from the last years of the nineteenth century
until the present war and to bring these things to the growing
group of collectors and museums interested in Chinese art. This
group, however, was and remains but a minute fraction of the
Occidental population that since the eighteenth century has used
the Chinese exports made for the Western trade. Connoisseurs
today know more of Chinese art and taste than ever before, but
the effect of this knowledge on the artistic life of the West is al-
most negligible.

JAPAN

The influence of Japan on recent Western art has been greater
than that of any other Far Eastern country. But the results of this
influence are restricted almost entirely to the French art of the
last three decades of the nineteenth century. Since 1909, with the
exception of minor interest in the fields of architecture, interior
decoration, garden planning, and flower arrangements, the artists
of Europe have not turned to Japan for inspiration. Inasmuch as
the Japanese color print was the medium for the influence of Japa-
nese on French art, it might be well to relate briefly the history
of Japanese print collecting in the West, with specific examples
of just what elements of this art the French artists of the late
nineteenth century adopted.

Until its failure in 1797, the Dutch East India Company had for
two centuries traded with the Japanese at the island of Deshima
in the harbor of Nagasaki. The goods exported from Japan were
primarily lacquers and Imari ware porcelains, both decorated
with elaborate patterns calculated to please the European taste.
Paintings, sculpture, prints, and textiles were unknown to this
trade and although, on the death in 1814 of Isaac Titsingh, for-
mer chief of the Dutch East India Company at Deshima, nine
Japanese prints were found among his belongings, in general the
Dutch trade did not handle paintings, sculptures, prints, and tex-
tiles. Prints, in particular, remained unknown to collectors and
artists until after Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853 had opened
the way to modern trading methods.

The London Exposition of 1862 boasted a Japanese court and
it was here that prints were first shown publicly. Later in the same
year these prints were sent to Paris where an art shop kept by
one Houseil in the Rue de Rivoli seems to have been the French
outlet for them. Almost at once they were noticed by Alfred
Stevens, Whistler, Diaz, Fortuny, and Legros. Manet, Fantin-La-
tour, Degas, and Monet as well as the engravers Bracquemont and
Jacquemart also came under their spell. Japanese art became bet-
ter known to the public at the Paris Exposition of 1867. In the
same year the “Jongleur,” a society of artists, began weekly meet-
ings at the home of M. Solon, the director of the ceramic factory
at Sevres, to study this new art. Although the great paintings and

sculptures of Japan were still unknown to the most eager French
collectors and students, the prints became their all-absorbing
passion. The story of those great collecting years, especially those
of the eighties and nineties, has been charmingly told by the late
M. Raymond Koechlin. His pages are filled with the excitement
of the discovery of this hitherto unsuspected and rich art world.

The movement grew rapidly and in 1873 there was a Universal
Exposition in Vienna which spread the knowledge of Japanese
prints still further. In the Paris fair of 1878 there was a Japanese
section organized by a Japanese dealer, Wakai, and in 1888 the
Burlington Fine Arts Club in London had a Japanese print show'
followed two years later in Paris by a special show. By then the
roster of collectors contained the names of men important in all
fields of artistic endeavor: Louis Gonse, Charles Edward Havi-
land, A. Rouart, Galimard, Koechlin, Isaac de Camondo, Guimet,
de Goncourt, Champfleury, Zola, and Villot. Another Japanese
dealer, Hayashi, was in charge of the Exposition in Paris in 1900,
for which the Japanese government lent really good sculptures
and paintings. Although these rare examples of the real Japanese
art returned to Japan at the end of the exhibition, they opened
another new vista to those interested in the Orient. This fervid
admiration for Japanese art is reflected in the tenuous and wavy
style of Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings. It also found expression
in the so-called “Style Nouveau” of interior decoration. This
style adapted to wrought iron and other decorative materials
the same Japanese influence that was expressed in the art of
Beardsley. The art dealer, S. Bing, decorated his shop in this
style and a room at the Invalides of about 1 900 also represents it.
But it was a sterile form and, within a few years, a dead one.

The first important sale of Japanese art was that of the Gon-
court collection in 1897. In 1902 and 1903 Hayashi offered his
collection at auction and in 1904 Villot followed suit. The Bing
sale in 1906 brought to an end the great period of Japanese art
in France. Buyers from other countries built up their collections
from these sales. Charles Freer of Detroit, Otto Kummel of the
Far Eastern Museum at Berlin, Mosle at Leipzig, and Olden at
Dusseldorf entered the Oriental field. From 1 909-1 914 there was
a series of six print shows at the Pavillion de Marsan for which
Charles Vignier and Hogitaro Inada did the catalogues. These

exhibitions also included lacquers, potteries, and sculptures, and
nearly all the private collectors lent for the occasion. These fa-
mous shows reviewed twenty-five years of collecting, and al-
though there were no paintings, since these were kept'in Japan,
it was clear that Paris was the center for Occidental knowledge
of Japanese minor arts. It was these minor arts in truth that had
the greatest influence on European design, an influence which is
still felt in the fields of the graphic arts and in textile and ceramic
design. With the retirement of Bing and Hayashi, the domina-
tion of the Oriental art field by Japan was at an end and the new
dealers and new collectors turned to ancient China. Hayashi in-
deed had had a few Chinese bronzes, but the pieces came too
high for the Paris collectors and eventually went to Gonse at
Freiburg. A few others of the old Japanese group, among whom
were Alexis Rouart and Isaac de Camondo, admitted Chinese
objects to their collections, but in general France remained the
center for Japanese collectors while Chinese collecting became
international.

The first name that comes to most minds when the subject
of the influence of Japanese prints on European art is under dis-
cussion is probably that of James Whistler, the American painter
who worked in England. The results of his contact with this new
art form were twofold: a new subject matter in his paintings
and a stylistic influence in his prints. “La Princesse de le Pays de
Porcelain,” done in 1864 and now hanging in the Freer Gallery
in Washington, is an example of his introduction of Japanese ac-
cessories into a painting that is primarily European in style, while
his series of prints of the Thames are close in feeling and tech-
nique to the best of the Japanese print-makers.

If one compares such a print as “Old Battersea Bridge”
(PL 2) to the Hiroshige “Twilight Moon at Ryogoku” (PL 5)
this derivation is at once apparent, for the similarity not only in
subject matter but in the treatment of the component parts is
clear. There are even such particular details as the “butterfly
signature” placed under the left of the bridge in the Whistler
to compare to the calligraphic signature in the upper right of the
Hiroshige.

There were other artists who very strongly felt the impact of
this new art with its bold design and strong, clear colors. The

Impressionists, officially launched in 1863 with Monet as their
sponsor, had been struggling with the problems of pure color
and light. They now added to their findings the new and fas-
cinating angular composition which they discovered in Japanese
prints. Clear examples of their borrowing are Monet’s “Waterloo
Bridge,” now in the Adolph Lewisohn collection, and any one
of Degas’ ballet compositions.

Startling evidence of European borrowing of subject matter
and style from the Japanese is to be found by comparison of the
three illustrations of prints in Plates 4, 5, and 6. Plate 4 is a
print by the great Japanese artist Hokusai. Here we have the
continuation of realism and flat areas of pattern which are so
characteristic of all Japanese work. In Plate 5, a woodcut done
in 1894 by Charles Houdard and called “Les Grenouilles,” we
find in the artist’s rendering of the iris and water a deliberate
borrowing of stylistic treatment, and although the frogs are
more naturalistic in the use of light and Shade than the one in the
Hokusai, the general effect is so similar as to give the feeling that
the artist was deliberately working in a foreign style. There is
even the detail of the artist’s initials, rendered calligraphically and
placed in a cartouche in the upper right-hand corner.

The resemblance is, perhaps, even more striking when we
study the lithograph of Henri Rachou dated 1892 (PL 6)\
for the areas of flat color with no cast shadows, the use of a
calligraphic line, and even such a trick as the inverted signature
in the cartouche are, when combined with the subject matter,
a direct borrowing from the Japanese. Or take such an example
as the Utamaro reproduced in Plate 7 and compare it with the
Mary Cassatt in Plate 8. Here we have the same broad treat-
ment of the figures, the same diagonal design, and almost the
same flat colors.

Another French artist working under this influence was Paul
Gauguin, and although his late works done in the South Seas have
a palette produced by that environment, his early Breton work
has not only the general pattern but the subdued coloring of
the Japanese work.

But the artist who made the Japanese contribution most par-
ticularly his own was Toulouse-Lautrec. There is almost no
print of his which does not owe something to the basic Japanese

plate 7 “Kaiyoikomachi,” wood-block color print by Kitagawa
Utamaro. Courtesy, Brooklyn Museum.

platf, 8 “The Fitting,” drypoint by Mary Cassatt. Courtesy ,
Brooklyn Museum.

plate 9 “Au Moulin Rouge,” color lithograph by Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec. Courtesy, Brooklyn Museum.

concept of large, flat areas of pure color, no shadows, and an
ingenuity of design that is found in such print-makers as Sharaku
and Bunsho.

In addition to those outward resemblances Toulouse-Lautrec
was also greatly influenced by the technical genius of the Japa-
nese print-makers. In the lithograph reproduced in Plate 8 there
is a brilliant example of the omission of what in a Japanese wood-
block print would be the key block. This can be seen in the
passage of the woman’s hand against her waist and in the outline
of the neck of the dress. Such tricks as those were, of course, the
ultimate refinements of an incredibly complicated process. In a
late Japanese print sometimes as many as fifty different blocks
are used, one for each color or shade, and the technical skill re-
sponsible for the perfection of printing has only recently been
matched in the Western world by the development of highly
complicated printing machines.

Toulouse-Lautrec, more than any of the contemporary French
artists, understood the brilliance of this new influence and its
adaptability to what was then, in Europe, the new art of the
poster. Inasmuch as many of the Japanese prints had been origi-
nally designed as advertisements for individual actors or the more
famous Geisha it was not too extraordinary that Lautrec’s series
on Jean Avril and Loie Fuller, to mention only two, should have
come into being.

It is, moreover, from this original source, distilled through
French taste and training, that the best of our contemporary
poster work derives.

Several attempts have been made to graft Japanese architecture
onto European design. Some have been more successful than
others, the best being those where the architect has tried to make
use of the principles of Japanese building rather than to repro-
duce the “quaint” or “charming” effect of a Japanese house.

These principles of Japanese architecture can be described in
a somewhat oversimplified generalization as an approach to
building by means of post and lintel, a type of structure in which
there is the closest relation between exterior and interior; a type
of residence in which, in a country where overpopulation and
lack of dwelling space are two irreconcilable facts, the greatest

possible use is made of each square foot. The modern flat with
its one-room combination of living-, bedroom, and sometimes
kitchen too, is the European equivalent of the Japanese house in
which screens are used to subdivide the one large area used as
a communal living-room during the day, into the more or less
requisite number of bedrooms, or more properly speaking sleep-
ing quarters, at night. It is, of course, a truism that the lack of
furniture simplifies the Japanese problem. As a corollary to the
use of this basic type of building, we have the fact that the prin-
ciple distinction between the home of the very rich noble and
that of the very humble farmer is one of quality of materials and
size of dwelling; the architectural style remains the same. The
exceptions are the results of the attempts on the part of the
wealthy to imitate European period or modern architectural de-
signs with almost universally disastrous results.

The book by the German architect Bruno Taut, Houses and
People of Japan (London, Gifford, 193^8), is the most compre-
hensive study by a European of Japanese methods of construc-
tion and the way in which the Japanese house fits the Japanese
life and climate. It is true that the ideal climate for such building
is found in the south or tropical zones, but several houses have
been built in Southern California in the last few years making
excellent use of the Japanese principle of relating the house to the
gardens in order to derive the greatest benefit from both.

Among the elements of Japanese architecture of which Euro-
pean and American designers have made use the most important
adaptations seem to me to be: the window running from ceiling
to floor which can be either lowered or moved to one side to
open up one or more sides of a room to the lawn or garden; the
experimentation with texture and design in the building materials
and decorating fabrics; and, in some cases, the actual use of paper
screens copied from the shoji. The next step may well be when
the mural artist is called in as collaborator with the architect to
decorate in seemly fashion these paper walls.

There is one great fallacy in this field which should perhaps
be corrected at this time. The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, on which
rests much of Frank Lloyd Wright’s fame, is, contrary to the
accepted version, most decidedly not the result of any study of
Japanese architecture. There are few dwellings less suitable to

the regional climatic conditions or in which the problems of a
hotel such as circulation and service have been less successfully
solved. To be sure, it stood through the great earthquake of
1923, but it sagged badly as a result, and it should be mentioned
that a block of 1890 red brick houses adjoining the hotel and the
Tokyo station of the same period not too far away, stood intact
while many buildings of purely Japanese design suffered no dam-
age whatever.

It is, obviously, impossible for the West to adopt completely
a style of architecture which gives no thought to central heating
and plumbing, but the basic Japanese elements of simplicity,
appropriateness, and quality of materials may well be important
contributions to our present somewhat muddled and eclectic
architectural styles.

The minor arts of Japan, such as lacquer, basketry, landscape
gardening, and flower arrangement, have had some influence on
European living, though the Japanese forms have, in many cases,
been lifted bodily from their native habitat and set down with-
out understanding or real appreciation in a foreign environment.
The Japanese garden, so permanently symbolized by the small
arrangement in a flat dish of mirrors, pebbles, rocks, moss, and
arched red wooden bridges with sometimes a Tori and small
figures, has only recently come into prominence as the ideal
solution for the minute plot of ground of a city dwelling. The
West has, however, a long way to go before it reaches the Japa-
nese freedom from non-essential elements whether in its homes,
its paintings, or its flower arrangement.

The art of flower arrangement, about which so much has been
written and said and so little comprehended, has in Japan strong
religious overtones and is often tied to the canons of Buddhism,
which demand above all else simplicity and naturalness. Here
again the American housewife, whether she spends several dollars
for handsomely bound and illustrated books or a dime for a
pamphlet on the art of flower arrangement, has yet to learn the
fundamental rule of Japanese flower arrangement, which is that
the flowers, except in the formal or ritualistic arrangements,
must approach as closely as possible the natural appearance of
those same flowers when actually growing.

The various Japanese styles of flower arrangement are far too
complex and too subtle for an American, untrained in Japan and
with a different type of home to decorate. Yet the Japanese em-
phasis on flower arrangement has spurred Americans to attempt
something more in the way of interior decoration than the tight
bunch of posies so popular in the Victorian era. Today every
flower show has its flower-arrangement section, there is consid-
erable literature on the subject, including many books on the
Japanese style, and the field is a fertile one for lectures. Ameri-
cans as a people are temperamentally unable to duplicate the
economy and subtlety of the best Japanese work, as could be seen
when American and Japanese work was exhibited side by side at
Yamanaka’s in New York in the early spring of 1941. But under
the inspiration of Japan, our arrangements are achieving more
variety and interest than before.

INDIA

The early story of Indian artistic influence on the West paral-
lels rather closely that of China. In the eighteenth century, when
England had taken over most of the East Indian trade at the
expense of Portugal and France, Indian cottons were in great
demand and the incredibly fine textiles, like the Dacca muslins,
were rightly regarded as treasures of the East. The small all-over
floral patterns with which the cottons were printed soon set the
fashion and were copied in Europe on woolens, linens, and silks.
In the nineteenth century, the infant American textile industry
adopted the craze and did a thriving business with sprigged cot-
tons of local manufacture as well as with plain white but in-
credibly sheer muslins made for Empire dresses but technically
inspired by Indian weaves. At the same time, Kashmir shawls be-
came fashionable, and the Scottish Paisley shawl business grew up
to meet the demand for a similarly patterned but cheaper article.

Like the Chinese porcelains and Japanese lacquers, the Indian
trade goods gained wide acceptance and inspired a host of imita-
tors, but they had nothing to do with the great arts of Indian
sculpture or painting. With the exception of the short-lived
architectural style in Portugal, a relic of Portuguese maritime
trade in the seventeenth century, Europe and America have known

little of these Indian arts until modern times. Then, as in the case
of China and Japan, the knowledge of the specialist grew side
by side with the increase of the art collections, but little of this
knowledge trickled through to the general public. One looks in
vain for traces of Indian influence in contemporary fashion or art.

The story of Indian collections begins with the British Museum,
which was an early nineteenth century repository for certain
Indian sculptures, especially the superb reliefs from Amara-
vati. The Victoria and Albert Museum honors its Indian objects
by housing them in a separate building. But until 1937 when the
collection was happily regrouped, nineteenth-century presents
to Queen Victoria were exhibited in preference to those pieces
which better illustrated the true Indian taste. It remained for
the Boston Museum under the curatorship of Dr. Anarida K.
Coomaraswamy and with the support of Dr. Denman W. Ross
to show Indian painting and sculpture most adequately to the
Western world. The Boston collection, together with its pub-
lished catalogues and other books by Dr. Coomaraswamy, affords
an unrivaled survey to which every student of the subject must
turn. The Metropolitan Museum also has an Indian collection,
and there are fine Indian things in Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas
City, Brooklyn, and several other museums, but there are no
great American or European private collectors in this field.

It is especially disappointing to find Indian art not more
warmly appreciated in England. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon tem-
perament shrinks from the frankly sensual quality of Indian sculp-
ture and is equally repelled by the jungle-like complexity of the
multiple heads, arms, and symbols of many Plindu deities. At
any rate, in a book like E. B. Havell’s Indian Sculpture you find
almost a hostility to the subject, which certainly does not help
to interpret to the Western mind Indian sculpture and the Indian
religious concepts which they embody. The English evidently
have liked the Mughal miniature paintings, for there are good
collections of them in the Victoria and Albert Museum and in
private hands.* But this type of painting, a combination of Per-
sian and European influences grafted on a native style and used
to portray and glorify the Mughal emperors and their countries,
is not truly Indian. In the West, it is only at the Boston Museum
* For instance, the superb group belonging to Sir Chester Beatty.

and in a few other collections on the eastern seaboard that one
can see more than a scattering of the older Indian paintings from
Nepal and the Jain monasteries, or the more recent and wholly
charming paintings from Rajputana and the Hill States that il-
lustrate Hindu mythology and poetry.

It is not too much to hope that the archaic strength of the
earliest Indian sculpture or the sweetness and charm of the early
nineteenth-century paintings from the Hill States may introduce
the more interested public to an appreciation and understanding
of the fine achievements of India’s artists.

SOUTH PACIFIC

The arts of the South Pacific islands have had absolutely no
influence, to my knowledge, on contemporary Western artists,
although the Western world has known of them for more than
two centuries and now, thanks to museum collections, offers a
better view of the South Pacific cultures than can be found in situ.
Wood carvings, masks, painted shields, and textiles from these
regions have been seen in England since the eighteenth-century
voyages of Captain Cook, for the “curiosities” he collected were
soon placed in the British Museum. American clipper-ship cap-
tains occasionally picked up South Sea things in their China trade.
The cabinets in the houses of their New England descendants
were full of them a generation ago, as shown by the fact that
the larger part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Melanesian material
was purchased from Connecticut houses about 1906.

Serious collecting, chiefly in the field, has followed the growth
of museums in the last forty years. At Leyden, the Dutch have
superb textiles, masks, paintings, sculpture, and weapons from
their East Indian Empire. The Germans, especially at Hanover,
have collected with typical diligence. And the British Museum,
perhaps as a result of the acquisitiveness of the early English ex-
plorers, has excellent material from the entire region. Indeed the
value of these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pieces cannot
be overestimated, for they show the art forms of the islands com-
pletely untouched by the white man’s trade goods or missionary
principles.

The Bishop Museum in Honolulu, as befits its geographical

location, specializes completely in the Southern Pacific cultures.
In the United States, the collections of the Field Museum are
prominent, with those of the American Museum of Natural His-
tory in New York, the University Museum in Philadelphia, the
Peabody at Cambridge, the Smithsonian in Washington, and the
Brooklyn Museum following close behind. In many cases, how-
ever, these collections are treated as ethnology rather than as art,
and are not accorded the same position or presentation as the
products of India, Japan, or China. To the public they remain
outlandish curiosities, with the same heathen tinge that they had
for the clipper-ship captains. Perhaps some artist will discover
the primitive force of Maori wood carving or the bold stylization
of a painted New Guinea shield, and we shall have such a brief
flurry in the painters’ world as occurred when Picasso in the
twenties took up African art; but the day has not yet come.

Walter T. Swingle

OUR AGRICULTURAL DEBT
TO ASIA

DO WE have an agricultural debt to Asia? Many peo-
ple would answer no, since many, yes, most of the cultivated
plants and' domesticated animals which constitute the backbone
of our agriculture came to us via Europe and had been utilized
so long in Europe as to seem like native European plants and
animals. Most of us do not realize that they are, almost all of
them, of Asiatic origin.

As a matter of fact all of our cereals except maize, sorghum,
and some forms of oats, originated in Asia. Almost all of our
vegetable crops are likewise Asiatic plants. All of our common
temperate-zone fruit trees, except the pecan and the native per-
simmon, came from Asia, and all citrus fruits too. Horses, don-
keys, cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and chickens are all Asiatic
animals. Our debt to Asia is enormous. Without Asiatic plants and
animals, our agriculture and that of the whole Western Hemi-
sphere could not have developed properly, as we would have no
domestic animals except the llama, an ill-tempered brute, and the
turkey. We would have a few good food plants, potatoes, sweet
potatoes, maize, lima and kidney beans, and the tomato, but no
green vegetables, no important fruit trees except the subtropical
avocado, and a few plums, grapes, and berries.

If we should suddenly be deprived by some malicious magic
of all the Asiatic plants and animals we now use we would at
first be amazed, then terrified, and soon starved unless we could
at once mobilize all the transportation facilities of the world to
bring us food, as well as wool for winter clothing, leather for
shoes, and a host of near-necessities we use every day.

CHINA, OUR CHIEF AGRICULTURAL CREDITOR

Few Americans realize that our chief agricultural creditor is
China. We are indebted to the1 Chinese not only for the best va-
rieties of oranges which we grow, but also for many other fruits
and vegetables grown commercially in the United States. The
soy bean (PL na ), whose extraordinary food value is now at last
beginning to be appreciated throughout this country, was one
of the five sacred grains believed to have been given the Chinese
people by the semimythical Emperor Shen-nung, “The Divine
Husbandman,” about the twenty-ninth century b.c. Rice (PL /o),
wheat, proso (millet) (PL nb , c ), and barley, the other four of
the five sacred “cereals,” were grown in China many centuries
before they were known in Europe; and the same can be said of
many vegetables that we commonly regard as European.

From the beginning of American intercourse with China, orna-
mental plants such as the gardenia, the camellia, and the Cherokee
rose were brought from China and grew well in our Southern
states. A few handsome trees were also introduced such as the
ginkgo and the camphor. As American merchants and missionaries
gradually penetrated into China, they sent home more and more
plants and trees. The Arnold Arboretum, organized and directed
by the great tree expert, C. S. Sargent, financed extensive trips to
the Orient to obtain botanical specimens and seeds of ornamental
trees and shrubs as well as photographs of them as they grew in
their native habitat. These trees and shrubs revolutionized the
garden and park plantings of the northern parts of the United
States. The illustrated, popular books of E. H. Wilson, who made
many trips to the Orient for the Arnold Arboretum, helped to
arouse interest in the very rich arboreal flora of China. The Ar-
nold Arboretum also sponsored scientific technical works such
as Plantae Wilsonianae and numerous botanical articles on the
trees and shrubs of China.

The Plant Introduction Service of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture was organized by David Fairchild in 1897; he did
very extensive exploring for foreign economic and ornamental
plants from 1898 on, and directed the Plant Introduction Service
from 1907 to 1928. I was fortunate enough to be one of the first
“agricultural explorers,” as they are called, commissioned for for-

eign work in the new service, though my field at first lay in the
Mediterranean regions and not in the Far East. Early in this cen-
tury other agricultural explorers were already sending to Wash-
ington thousands of packages of seeds and hundreds of bales of
living plants from China. Of these men Frank N. Meyer and
P. H. Dorsett were outstanding, not only for the number and
value of the plants they secured, but also for the detailed and ac-
curate descriptions of every plant they sent to Washington.

P. H. Dorsett, some years later, in the early twenties, traveled
widely in North China, taking many fine photographs of Chinese
crop plants and writing descriptions of the culture, harvesting, and
curing of each. On these trips he collected many varieties of soy
beans (PL na , /^), largely through the utilization of a new and
potent method of securing the willing co-operation of all edu-
cated Chinese people. A complete translation, prepared by Mi-
chael J. Hagerty under my direction in 1917, of the chapter on
soy beans contained in a standard Chinese work on economic
plants (the Chih Wu Ming Shih T‘u K‘ao by Wu Ch‘i-chiin)
had been furnished the plant explorers looking for soy bean va-
rieties. This translation, covering eighty-two pages, discussed
several hundred varieties, telling where they were largely grown.
In all cases the name of the variety and the name of the locality
where it was grown were not only spelled out in English letters,
but also written carefully in Chinese characters. An index made
it easy to turn to any variety under discussion and see what was
said about its culture.

This was a turning point in field explorations in China. Such
indexed translations in the hands of foreign plant explorers in-
sured the attention of all educated Chinese, who gladly directed
the explorer to the nearest source of the various named varieties.
I had learned this at first hand in 1915 when studying varieties of
Citrus in southern China. Surprise and skepticism about the for-
eigner’s knowledge of Chinese books gave way to astonishment
and warm approbation. The detailed indices of these translations
made it possible for the traveling American experts to ask intelli-
gent questions and often to check the accuracy of the replies.
Without such annotated lists of varieties and with no knowledge
or appreciation of Chinese works of reference the agricultural
explorer got very different treatment— polite reception accom-

panied with profound doubt of the foreigner’s knowledge of the
subject. He could buy seeds or plants actually on hand for sale,
but no active effort was made to point out to him other, perhaps
superior, varieties, which grew in other districts, even if these
districts were near by. The peasants of China have always been
profoundly influenced by the attitude of the gentry, and a for-
eigner who can get the respect and confidence of both the gentry
and the peasants can go far, very far, in China.

China will probably continue to be the chief donor of new
crop plants, of new foods, and of new dietetic uses of vegetable
foods for the United States. The main reasons for this preferred
position of China as a source of new and useful crops are:

( 1 ) China has the largest array of crop plants of any temperate-
zone country because it has by far the largest flora of any tem-
perate-zone region of the whole world.

(2) Because of the essentially agricultural civilization of the
Chinese, their long occupation of China, and their enormous pop-
ulation, every useful plant has been utilized to the full.

(3) Recurring famines, coupled with poor transportation over
mountain barriers or flooded plains, have forced the Chinese to
utilize for food every wild plant not actually poisonous.

(4) The great importance given to dietetics by the Chinese
since ancient times— an importance probably equaling that given
to medicine— has led to the very efficient use of innumerable food
plants which grow wild or are cultivated in all parts of China.

(5) The climatic conditions prevailing in southeastern China
are very similar to those of the east central and southeastern
United States.

(6) The United States is the only country with a population
of European origin having numerous widely distributed Chinese
restaurants which already serve hundreds of thousands of Ameri-
can clients. These restaurants are eager to make use of the nu-
merous Chinese food and flavoring plants. And this makes it easy
for Americans to introduce these plants into their own kitchens
as they are doing now, more every year.

The soy bean is a striking example of the introduction of a
new crop. China has known the soy bean for fifty centuries (in
ancient times it was called shuy or pulse; now it is known as ta
ton, or “big bean”). Soy beans were sent from China to France

as early as 1740, and from 1779 were grown in the famous
Botanic Garden of Paris. Benjamin Franklin, who had been a
member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1772, sent
seeds back to the United States while he was the United States
Ambassador to France, and urged that they be given a trial. But
in spite of his plea, the soy bean remained merely a curiosity in
this country for more than a century.

In the late eighties Prof. C. C. Georgeson brought soy bean
seeds from Japan, where he had been teaching at the Agricultural
College at Komaba, and planted them in a field on the campus of
the Kansas State Agricultural College. I could see the stunted soy
bean plants from the windows of the botanical laboratory where
I was a teen-age research assistant. This variety, adapted to the
perpetual spring climate of Komaba near Tokyo, did not do well
on the bare Kansas hills, often swept by hot dry winds. And
nothing happened. Soy beans did not arouse interest among Kan-
sas farmers until many years after this failure.

In the third decade of the twentieth century Dorsett sent to
Washington more than 800 named soy bean varieties from China,
Manchuria and Japan. These, together with shipments secured by
Dr. David Fairchild from his numerous correspondents in the
Old World, especially in Asia, amounted by 1928 to a total of
more than 2,800 packages of soy beans, almost all named varieties
but many of them duplicated, some of them many times. Mean-
time tests made by W. J. Morse, in charge of soy bean culture for
the Bureau of Plant Industry, showed that many varieties had
a narrow range of adaptability. Accordingly, from 1929 to 1931,
Morse joined Dorsett in the Orient and these two experts, with
trained Chinese helpers, brought to this country the largest single
collection of soy bean varieties ever assembled. As soon as Morse
returned from studying soy beans in Asia and attacked the prob-
lem of finding which Asiatic varieties were adapted to the differ-
ent regions and of selecting and breeding to make them fit various
American soils and climates, a remarkable change occurred in
soy bean culture. Yields went up and plantings increased year by
year. In 1924, 1,782,000 acres were planted to soy beans in the
United States and the average yield was 1 1 bushels per acre. In
1942 the acreage is estimated by Morse to have been 15,102,000
(this was more than 25 per cent increase over the 1941 acreage)

and the part of the crop harvested for beans was worth over
$200,000,000. About half of the total acreage was not harvested
for beans (PL 14 ), but grazed or cut for hay. The yield per acre
reached 18.7 bushels per acre, an increase of 847 per cent in acre-
age and 17 per cent in yield!

Soy bean culture for seed-crop production has, for the past few
years, attained a relatively stable position as is indicated by the
estimates published annually by the Soy Bean Association.

In 1943 the acreage was up 7 per cent above that of 1942 but
the yield per acre was down about 6.6 per cent; in 1944 the
acreage was up 1 per cent above 1943 but the yield per acre was
7.7 per cent less. Prices per bushel have shown only small varia-
tion. Mr. W. J. Morse’s estimates show the price per bushel was
up about 8.4 per cent in 1943 over 1942. The soy bean crop is
now one of the seven or eight major crops of the United States.
As our people learn to utilize more fully what the Chinese have
discovered during the last 4,000 years about making delicious,
nourishing, and easily digested food from soy beans, this crop
may even rise to fifth or sixth place in our agriculture.

This growth of soy bean culture in the United States has been
rendered possible by a rapidly expanding market for more and
more soy bean products. Soy bean oil, which makes up about 18
per cent of the weight of the bean, is used on a very large scale
for making shortening, oleomargarine, and other edible products.
Such uses, even in 1935, absorbed 63,613,000 pounds, while 13,-

003.000 pounds were used in the paint and varnish industry,

4.816.000 pounds in making linoleum, oilcloth and waterproof
goods, including artificial leather, and finally 2,549,000 pounds for
soap. Year by year much larger amounts are being used for these
purposes.

One of the best-known industrial uses of soy bean proteins
is for making a water-resistant glue. No less than 30,000 tons of
soy bean glue were made in 1942 by a single firm and its licensees
annually, most of it being used in the rapidly growing plywood
industry. Soy bean proteins have been enthusiastically used by
Henry Ford in his automobiles, being mixed with the more ex-
pensive phenolic resins, thereby reducing costs and also yielding a
more plastic, freer-flowing mixture which takes dyes better.

Soy beans are also employed on a large scale as green manure

to build up the fertility of the soil. Unlike cotton, soy beans
fix the free nitrogen of the air and, if the plants are plowed
under, the soil is enriched. Hay fed to livestock is usually re-
turned to the soil in the form of manure.

Soy bean products contain certain amino acids, essential for
human nutrition, of the kinds usually found in meat and not
occurring abundantly in vegetables other than soy beans. In fact
the use of soy beans probably enables China to support twice as
many people as would otherwise be possible. As N. Gist Gee,
a well-known American naturalist, who spent many years in
China, wrote of the Chinese in 1918: “They do not use milk and
butter as we do, and it is very difficult indeed to supply meat for
the entire population, even if they were all able to buy it. Yet
in spite of these facts, they make up a splendid balanced ration at
a most reasonable price by the large use of the bean.”

Soy beans contain small amounts (2 to 3 per cent) of a valuable
constituent, one of the phosphatids (a complex compound of
phosphoric acid, an organic base choline and other substances)
which is called lecithin. Lecithin has been found very useful in
facilitating the mixing and preserving of foods such as margarine,
chocolate and other candies and ice cream. It is said to help in
conserving vitamin A along with the fat in which it is dissolved.
Lecithin contains the organic base, choline, which poultry hus-
bandmen have found to be almost indispensable in raising chick-
ens, especially in enabling the hens to make good laying records.
In a test made recently at the Florida Agricultural Experiment
Station, at Gainesville, Florida, it was found that young hens well
fed except for choline laid on the average only 5 eggs during the
first 3 months of laying, while comparable hens given choline in
small amounts laid 35 eggs (7 times as many) during the same
period.

The soy bean proteins, which constitute 40 per cent of the
weight of the beans, are used on a rapidly increasing scale for
human food and for feed for hogs and poultry. Some 61,377,000
pounds of soy bean flour were supplied to the United Nations
under the lend-lease and 5,000,000 pounds were distributed to
schools eligible to receive school lunch commodities by the Agri-
cultural Marketing Administration at Washington, during the
year ending August, 1942. The Army is now using soy bean flour

in the K ration as K biscuits, and also employs many soy beans
in the Army pork link sausages because such use permits “stretch-
ing of available meat supplies, a saving in connection with fat
release,” and because “from a nutritional standpoint the product
is improved and the cost to the Army lowered.” Some 25 million
pounds of soya flour and grits were sold in 1940, no million in
1942 and by 1943 no less than 290 million pounds were used. Very
recent research by D. Breese Jones and J. P. Devine, of the
Bureau of Chemistry and Agricultural Engineering, U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, has shown that the addition of as little as 10
per cent of soy bean flour to ordinary bread produces bread much
like white bread in appearance but slightly firmer in texture and
of better keeping qualities, and that such bread, fed to rats for six
weeks, gives almost four times as much growth as ordinary white
bread. If 1 5 per cent soy bean flour is used, five times the growth-
promoting value of white bread is obtained. No doubt such bread
will come rapidly into use in feeding the people of post-war
Europe.

Soy bean milk is made cheaply and rapidly by grinding the
beans between millstones with a small flow of water between
them. The milk is boiled, coagulated, and the slightly yellowish
curd is sold in cakes about three inches square and an inch thick.
This tofu has the smooth texture of baked custard. It has a very
mild flavor and is not only very nutritious but also easily digesti-
ble. It blends with soft meat dishes like calves’ brains or stews. As
long ago as 1917-1918 Dr. Yamei Kin set up under my general
supervision for the United States Department of Agriculture a
soy bean mill in New York City in the hope of supplying tofu
to increase the bulk and food value of meat dishes served to sol-
diers in training at near-by camps. Dr. Kin succeeded in making
excellent tofu. She even served to a group of army officers a
meal composed entirely of soy bean dishes! However, it proved
impossible to test tofu on a large scale at that time, since we could
not get priorities for transporting of soy beans from North
Carolina, then the nearest region where they were grown on any
considerable scale.

One of the greatest discoveries made by the Chinese many
centuries ago is the use of double or multiple fermentations in
preparing soy bean or other food products. The first of these

fermentations is accomplished by a special mold fungus which
speedily invades the beans or tofu . This fermentation must be
brought to an abrupt close at the proper time by immersing the
molded soy beans in strong brine. During several months a
ripening and mellowing of the product takes place in the brine
under the influence of special fermentation bacteria. These com-
plex processes require great skill and are held as guild secrets.
Few foreigners indeed ever have the opportunity to see them.

A splendid example of double fermentation is the soy bean
cheese called nam yue by the Cantonese and sufu in North
China. It is preferred even to the best Roquefort as a salad dress-
ing constituent by those who have had the opportunity to try
it. It is made by Chinese masters of the cheesemaker’s art who
believe that its fermentation is an insoluble mystery.

Shih Chi-yien, then working in the American University of
Soochow, published in 1918 the first English account of the most
important fermented bean foods. He traced the making of tofu
from soy beans back to the Han dynasty (a.d. 22). Ten years
later Wai Ngan-shou, one of the first scientifically-trained Chi-
nese microbiologists and fermentation experts, was able to isolate
and identify as a new species of Mucor the mold that makes pos-
sible the nam yiie fermentation. It is a curious fungus, Mucor
sufuy distantly related to the miraculous Penicilliwn notatum
whose marvelous curative action has only recently been discov-
ered. A third fermentation expert, Shih You-kuang, studied an-
other soy bean fermentation product, meitauzay made by another
species of Mucor, and published an illustrated account of it in
German in 1937. In his review of the literature of Mucor fer-
mentations Shih You-kuang cites no fewer than thirty articles by
eighteen authors all based on Chinese fermentations.

The best-known example of double fermentation is the very
widely used soy sauce, which also furnishes the basis for many
condiment sauces in Europe and America.

It is made on an enormous scale in China. The boiled soy beans
are covered with wheat flour, fermented with a yellow Aspergil-
lus mold for one to three weeks, put into strong brine (18 per
cent), and cured for several months in the sun with occasional
stirring. Miss Elizabeth Groff, under my direction in 1918, made
a thorough study of the fermentation of soy sauce in the famous

factories of Canton, China, and published the first detailed ac-
count of the process in the Philippine Journal of Science for 1919.
With the rapid advance in the use and study of soy bean foods,
this highly nutritive condiment sauce should soon be as well
known here as it is in China.

REPAYING OUR DEBT TO CHINA FOR THE SOY-
BEAN

The people of the United States can now repay, at least in part,
the debt which we owe to the Chinese who have willingly sup-
plied us with thousands of sacks of seed of their best varieties of
soy beans and thereby made possible the phenomenally rapid ex-
pansion and utilization of this new crop in the United States. Our
plant breeders have been able to combine the good qualities of
some of the best soy bean varieties and some of their new hybrids
have shown marked superiority to the Chinese varieties in some
parts of our country. We can now benefit also from the research
discoveries of the Chinese experts, which I am told by Dr. Wen-
Tsai Chang (of the University of Nanking at Chengtu in West
China) have led to the discovery of disease-resistant soy beans
able to give large yields in southwestern China where most north
Chinese varieties (such as we have introduced into America) do
not do well because of their susceptibility to virus disease. It will
be mutually advantageous to exchange our hybrid soy bean vari-
ties for the south Chinese varieties resistant to virus.

Mung bean ( chHng tou) sprouts are a favorite dish of the Chi-
nese in the United States and are eaten by almost every American
patron of the Chinese restaurants. These beans, ch‘ing tou , after
being soaked, are placed in a warm comer of the kitchen on a
sieve or net a few inches above water standing in the bottom of a
vessel, germinate rapidly, and in a few days the slender sprouts,
one to two inches long, are blanched for a few minutes in scalding
water (not cooked throughout but sterilized on the surface) and
used in the Chinese dishes. Such sprouts of green beans can be
used for salad instead of lettuce at a very much lower cost. These
beans, widely grown in China and India, are now being grown
on a commercial scale in Oklahoma. The sprouted beans are
known to be a very good source of vitamin B, and an excellent

source of Vitamin C (of which they contain more than lettuce
usually does). The Chinese method of scalding the sprouted
beans would conserve almost all the vitamin C. Recent analyses
show these sprouted beans to have a good content of riboflavin.
Due to transportation priorities and labor conditions resulting
from World War II, gram bean sprouts may assume an important
role in the United States as a cheap source of necessary vitamins.
They are now on sale to American customers in many grocery
and meat stores in California. Recently, sprouted soy beans are
being used in the same way.

Buddhist monks have lived for more than two thousand years
on a purely vegetarian diet. In China they have perfected the
most tasty, nutritious, and digestible substitutes for animal foods.
The fermented soy bean cheeses and sauces have made possible
this gastronomic miracle. Large as is our agricultural debt to the
Chinese, it will become much greater when we learn from them
their art of preparing delicious vegetarian dishes, rich in vitamins,
easy to digest, and reasonable in cost, and secure from them the
numerous savory vegetables they grow, most of which we do not
yet grow in this country.

For several thousand years agriculture was almost a state re-
ligion in China. The Emperor Shen-nung, the semilegendary
“Divine Husbandman” of about the twenty-ninth century b.c., to
whom I referred above as the donor of the five sacred cereals—
rice, wheat, proso (or millet), soy beans and barley— is supposed
to have tasted innumerable plants and studied their medicinal
virtues, as well as to have taught agriculture to the Chinese peo-
ple. His son Chu was Minister of Husbandry. The great ceremony
of the plowing of the soil and the sowing of the seeds of these
five kinds of grain at the spring equinox by the Emperor him-
self was inaugurated at this early epoch, indeed at the very dawn
of Chinese history, and persisted until the overthrow of the Man-
chu Dynasty in 19 u.

Shen-nung’s successor, the Emperor Huang Ti, is said to have
compiled the Herbal, still extant, called the Shen-nung Pen Ts‘ao,
and through the centuries Chinese works on agriculture and its
special branches, including economic plants, have been both nu-
merous and valuable. As recently as the reign of Emperor Chien
Lung (1736-1796), a monumental work, Yu Ti Mien Hua T'u,

was issued by the Emperor with an introduction by his great an-
cestor, the Emperor K‘ang Hsi, urging the culture of cotton in
northern China where silk culture is difficult to carry on. The
implication is plain that the Emperors as late as the eighteenth
century felt almost personally responsible for the continuance
and improvement of agriculture in China. The earliest existing
works on Chinese agriculture are treatises on silk culture, after
which the Imperial monumental work on cotton was modeled.

One of the oldest works on economic plants is the Nan Fang
Tscao Mu Chuangy an account of about a hundred economic plants
classed under herbs, fruit trees, forest trees, and bamboos, writ-
ten by Chi Han, a Minister of State in the Western Chin Dynasty
(290-307 a.d.) . Chi Han had served as governor of Canton, so he
had had an opportunity to study at first hand the plants of South
China.

In discussing oranges, he said that if they have ants they are
good, otherwise, not. This cryptic sentence was quoted in many
Chinese encyclopedic works but never was explained and hence
never understood until some twenty-five years ago when a group
studying the citrus fruits in the vicinity of Canton for me, under
the supervision of Professor George Weidman Groff, found a
small village where the inhabitants said their principal business
was “growing ants.” Some of Professor Groff’s Chinese student
helpers from Lingnan University at Canton made fun of this
claim, since they saw mulberry trees and silkworms in the village
and thought silk was the true product. The villagers then said:
“True, we have mulberry trees and do grow silkworms, but we
feed them before they are full grown to the ants, which we sell
to orange growers for a dollar a nest.”

This ant, Oecophylla s?mragdinay a well-known tropical or sub-
tropical species, constructs silk nests on the trees, into which all
the ants retire at night. The orange growers connect the orange
trees with one another by means of bamboo poles, over which
the ants travel to build nests in all the orange trees. The ants no
longer eat silkworms but devour the insects which attack the
orange trees or the fruits. The owner of a lychee tree in his home
garden near Canton told me he had purchased a nest of ants (the
nests are cut off the tree at night and tied in a tight bag) which
had prevented all insect injury to his crop of lychees and wers

particularly efficient in driving off a large insect, Tessarotoma
papillosa> a pentatomid bug nearly an inch long.

These ants never attack the plants and never nest in the
ground, so they are easily removed from a garden by cutting off
the silken nests in which the colonies live at night. Probably they
can some day be utilized in the United States to keep fruit or-
chards free from insect pests. They are now employed in Indo-
China and New Guinea as well as in southern China, where Chi
Han reported they were in use sixteen and a half centuries ago.
Incidentally this is, so far as is known, the earliest record of the
“biologic control” of insects, now used on an ever-increasing
scale all over the world.

Among other ancient Chinese agricultural works is the Li Chih
P‘u , written in 1059 a.d. by Ts‘ai Hsiang, a famous scholar, callig-
rapher, and engineer, who built the noted stone bridge, used to
this day, over the estuary of the Min River in Fukien Province.
Ts‘ai Hsiang had an artist go with him to make paintings of all
the best varieties of lychee. Unfortunately these paintings have
been lost, but a painting of the variety considered by Ts‘ai
Hsiang to have the finest color, aroma, flavor, and to be the
best of all, the Ch‘en family purple lychee (PL 12 ), was made by
the Sung Emperor Hui Tsung about half a century later (1101-
1126 a.d.) . This painting is preserved in the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art in New York City. Professor G. W. Groff, whose
volume The Lychee and Lungan gives a summary of the Chinese
and Western literature on the lychee and describes all of the im-
portant varieties grown near Canton, is now living in Florida,
where he encourages and helps all lychee growers (PL 13) by
drawing on his long experience in China.

A great work on Chinese agriculture is Nung Cheng Cfruan
Shu by Hsu Kuang-ch‘i, a distinguished Chinese scholar who was
Minister of State during the reign of the Emperor Wan Li. He
lived from 1562 to 1633 and warmly supported the scientific work
of the Jesuit scholars at Peking and became himself a convert.
This well-known work, which was published in 1640 by imperial
command, covered the whole field of agriculture and includes
an account of a method of separating and discarding light cotton
seeds by rejecting those which float in water. “The seeds which
are empty, old, fire-dried, oily, or rotten will float,” the author

says, “while those which are hard and solid will surely sink.
Those seeds which sink may be planted.” It was not until the
first decade of the twentieth century that the practice of rejecting
light seed and planting of heavy seed only was discovered and
recommended in the United States as giving from eight to eleven
per cent increase in yield.

Another beneficial treatment of cotton seed, by treating with
scalding water, was advocated in 1765 by Fang Kuan-ch‘eng
in the Imperial Memorial on Cotton Culture (Yu Ti Mien Hua
T‘u)y to which I have referred above. This volume includes
twelve large plates, with a rhythmic prose introduction by the
Emperor K'ang Hsi and descriptive and allegorical poems, one
by the Emperor Ch‘ien Lung, as well as brief instructions on
cotton culture and use by the Viceroy of Chihli, Fang Kuan-
ch‘eng, opposite the plate to which they refer. Not until the
second decade of the twentieth century did we discover by
scientific tests made in the United States that such treatment
destroys a fungous parasite which often kills the germinating cot-
ton seedling.

These references and many others in this article indicate how
many important things we could have learned from the Chinese
if we had had Chinese books, say a century ago, and what is more
important, capable scholars to translate them. It has been my
privilege to assist in building up a great Chinese library in the
Library of Congress, under the enlightened policy of Dr. Her-
bert Putnam, beginning in 1912. The Orientalia Division, headed
by Dr. Arthur Hummel, is now the largest Chinese library out-
side of Asia and is probably larger than all the European li-
braries of Chinese books combined. It now contains. Dr. Hum-
mel estimates, about 230,000 Chinese volumes ( Chiian ) and some
20,000 more will soon be added in the form of bibliofilm copies
of very rare works from the Chinese National Library, sent to
Washington for safekeeping.

The outbreak of citrus canker in the orange and grapefruit
groves of Florida early in the second decade of this century
reached such a crisis about 1914 that it was decided to make a
thorough search in China for oranges and other citrus fruit trees
possessing resistance to this bacterial disease to which all the
standard varieties of oranges and grapefruit were subject.

I wars sent to Japan, China, and the Philippines by the Bureau
of Plant Industry in 1915 to search for canker-resistant varieties
and soon saw that it would be necessary to make a methodical
search for such resistant varieties in China, where many, doubt-
less several hundred, varieties were cultivated in all of the prov-
inces south of the Yangtze River and also in Szechwan. It became
evident that the numerous references to citrus fruits and their
culture which crowd the pages of the Chinese encyclopedias
should be read and translated into English. Fortunately, a talented
translator of Chinese, Mr. Michael J. Hagerty, was working un-
der my supervision, and he was able to proceed rapidly with
such translations.

The largest single Chinese account of the citrus fruits is con-
tained in the great Chinese Imperial Encyclopedia ChHn Ting Ku
Chin T‘u Shu Shi Ctteng, the largest encyclopedia ever printed
in any country. It was compiled by order of the Manchu Em-
peror K‘ang Hsi by Ch‘eng Meng-lei,Tbut the work was not com-
pleted when K‘ang Hsi died in January, 1723. His son and
successor as Emperor, Yung Cheng, promptly dismissed Ch‘en
Meng-lei, and appointed Chiang T‘ing-hsi, a scholar and states-
man of some distinction, under whose care the manuscript was
printed in 1726. This giant work fills 5020 large volumes, each
containing two books or chapters.

The chapter on citrus fruits translated by Mr. Hagerty con-
sists of about 500 pages and the translation covers 529 typewrit-
ten pages, with an index of 39 pages and an introduction of 14
pages— a grand total of 582 pages. In addition to a general sum-
mary in brief form of what is known about each citrus fruit,
there is given under the title Hui K‘ao a great number of quota-
tions from Chinese works of every description, so that practically
every word, every paragraph of every form of discussion regard-
ing citrus fruits is reprinted in full and arranged, as far as pos-
sible, chronologically. This would be comparable to an English
work on grapes or roses where every poem and every essay con-
cerning grapes or roses was quoted in full. Mr. Hagerty not only
renders the literal sense of the poem or essay, but explains clearly
the numerous literary, mythological, and historical allusions.

Another famous Chinese classic of agriculture is the first mono-
graph on citrus fruits to appear in any country, the Chii Luy

written by Han Yen-chih, while he was magistrate in Wenchow
in Chekiang Province. This work, published in 1178, described
in some detail all the citrus fruits then cultivated in Wenchow,
some twenty-seven varieties, with a discussion of remarkably up-
to-date methods for picking and shipping oranges.

At this early date Han Yen-chih warned against injuring the
skin of oranges in picking them or in careless handling. He in-
sisted that the pedicel on which the fruit is borne should be cut off
close to the fruit so that it could not scratch or perforate the skin
of other fruits in the same container. Unfortunately this classic
on the oranges of Wenchow had never been made available to
the American orange growers and the citrus experts of this
country until Hagerty’s annotated translation of the Chii Lu
appeared in 1923.

As a result of our ignorance of Han Yen-chih’s sound advice,
heavy losses were incurred early in this century in shipping Cali-
fornia oranges to the eastern markets of the United States. The
farmers -blamed the inadequate refrigeration given the shipments
by the railway companies, but the installation of better methods
of refrigeration did not entirely stop the decay of the fruit. It
was proved by elaborate research made under the direction of
G. Harold Powell that some of the losses were due to scars or
cuts in the peel of the fruits which were attacked by fungi or
bacteria. More careful cutting of the fruit and more careful
handling of it afterwards prevented this decay.

The best varieties of oranges which we grow all originated in
China, as did many of the other citrus fruits grown commercially
in the United States (all the citrus fruits are from Asia with the
possible exception of the limes, which may have originated in
some of the northern islands of the East Indian Archipelago). A
study made for me by Mr. Kwok Wa-shau of the citrus fruits
cultivated in the vicinity of Canton, China, resulted in a volume
containing detailed descriptions and figures of close to one hun-
dred distinct varieties. Indeed it is probable that there are now
cultivated in China at least five hundred and possibly as many as
one thousand distinct varieties of citrus! These varieties merit
careful study because some of them are disease-resistant, some are
hardy, and many have fruits of high quality. We have certainly
not tested more than ten per cent of them— probably not more

than five per cent. China still has great reserves of agricultural
experience upon which we may draw.

Famine Herbals constitute an outstanding example of the thor-
oughness with which the possibilities of China’s varied plant life
were long ago explored. Because of frequent droughts and floods
in densely populated parts of China, many people have often died
of starvation, especially where mountains or flooded river valleys
prevented the transportation of food to the stricken region. The
starving people sometimes managed to keep alive until help ar-
rived or a new catch crop matured by eating weeds and other
wild plants. The books known as Famine Herbals described these
plants and usually illustrated them and gave recipes. The most
outstanding of such books is the Chiu Huang Pen Ts‘ao or “Re-
lieve Famine Herbal,” by Chou Ting-wang, the fifth son of the
first Ming Emperor, Hung Wu. From 1382 to 1400 this prince
is said to have lived on his estates near JCaifengfu, in Honan prov-
ince, where he obtained from farmers and hermits four hundred
or more kinds of plants supposed to be suitable for food in time
of famine. These he set out in a garden where he personally ob-
served them, drew up descriptions, and had artists make drawings
of them. He then arranged these plants in groups according to
the edibility of their leaves, fruits, blossoms, roots, and so on, and
published the work with a preface by his friend and helper, Pien
T*ung, dated 1406. The illustrations in the Famine Elerbal are
large and, in spite of their primitive technique, of high artistic
quality. As a result of the long-continued study given to this and
similar works, many species first used for food only in time of
famine finally became well-known food plants and were regu-
larly cultivated.

Most of the Chinese works noted above were written by Chi-
nese scholars, many of them holding high places in the Chinese
civil service; several were compiled with the collaboration of
Emperors or Imperial princes. This shows clearly the great im-
portance given in China since remote antiquity to all problems
concerning agriculture, food, or medicine.

For more than a thousand years (until 1911) the highest pro-
vincial and imperial posts were filled by civil-service examinations
open to all Chinese, even the sons of small farmers. As nearly
eighty per cent of China’s huge population is engaged in some

100

plate ii (a) The soy bean (ta tou , big bean), probably the
most important crop of China, (b) Proso ( shu, panicled millet),
another of the five sacred grains, recently introduced into the
United States, (c) Sorghum ( shu shu , Szechwan panicled millet),
(d) Loquat {pH pa ), grown in Florida and California.

Sf®8

iflis#

plate 13 A beautiful cluster of ripe lychees plate 12 The Ch en Purple Lychee, considered

(2/5 natural size), produced in southern Flor- by Ts‘ai Hsiang in his monograph (1059 a.d.) to be

ida. It was introduced from Fukien province the best. A painting attributed to the Sung Emperor

by Rev. W. N. Brewster in 1907. Courtesy , Hui Tsung (1101-1126 a.d.). Courtesy , Metropolis

G. Weidman Groff. tan Museum of Art.

plate 1 4 A soy bean plantation in Iowa, one of the leading soy
bean-growing States, showing a remarkably uniform height o
the plants, ail of them healthy. Courtesy , William f. Morse .

plate 15 A giant mango tree growing near Bahia, Brazil. Pho-
tograph by P. H. Dor sett, Bureau of Plant Industry .

plate 1 6 A pu re-blood two-year-old zebu bull of the Guzerat
breed, Millungera, Queensland, Australia.

plate 17 Half-breed zebu-shorthorn hybrids, raised at Millun-
gera during two very dry years when many shorthorn calves and
some cows died. Photographs by Dr. R. B. Kelley, courtesy ,
Australian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

plate 1 8 The great expanse of sand dunes (el erg) in the Souf country of southern Tunisia, with numer-
ous sunken date gardens. Photograph by F. Boiiganlt.

idio, Cal-
e United
> through
of Agri-

plate 20 An Arab mare. The photographer reports that nothing would induce
this mare to stand still until the owner finally put on her Arab bcrnous and
mounted her. “This,” the photographer says, “acted like magic, for under its spell
the animal at once became quiet.” Photograph by T. Fall , from “ Animals of the
World” courtesy , Garden City Publishing Company .

form of agriculture, the Chinese system of recruiting talented
men to fill all important official positions led to the appointment
of very many high officials of scholarly training who brought to
their tasks a clear understanding of agricultural problems and an
intense interest in them.

The gentry of China, much more influential than is supposed by
most foreigners, was recruited and strengthened in its power by
the continual accession of these well-trained scholars and their
descendants. The children of high officials did not, ipso facto ,
follow in the footsteps of their fathers but had to earn their own
places in the government hierarchy by passing the higher exam-
inations. The potentially perpetual privileged hereditary aristoc-
racy as developed in Europe was something unknown in China.

In many cases the Chinese medicinal plants are in effect sup-
plementary foods as well as remedial medicines. The rare season-
ing lo ban kuo ( Momordica Grosvenori Swingle) grown by a
non-Chinese tribe (the Aliao-tze) in a segregated district in the
mountains of Kwangsi Province, is used as a prized condiment in
soups, as well as a household remedy for throat and intestinal dis-
turbances. Until the Japanese invasion of China cut us off from
Hong Kong and Canton, this fruit was exported to the United
States for use by Chinese to the value of several tens of thousands
of dollars. Many other Chinese food plants are listed in the Chinese
Materia Medica, which includes more than a thousand items.

Until recently, however, our debt to Chinese medicine was
limited largely to rhubarb from the Tibetan foothills and West
China— not our common rhubarb, which is also of Asiatic origin,
but another species of Rheum which, although used in Europe
and America for centuries, is still imported from China, since the
Chinese drug is more potent than that grown in Europe.

Another drug plant, called ma huang by the Chinese, has been
known and used for forty centuries in China. About three dec-
ades ago it was investigated in the American-founded and sup-
ported Peking Union Medical College and found to contain the
very potent and valuable alkaloid ephedrin, much like adrenalin
in its action but much easier to administer, very much easier to
store, and also cheaper. Imports of ma huang to Europe and
America took a big jump, and soon ephedrin became indispens-

ioi

able to throat and nose specialists and useful to other physicians
as well.

The plant which furnishes ma huang in China proved to be a
species new to science, named Ephedra sinica as late as 1924, by
Stapf, a famous botanist of Kew Gardens, England. In 1926 I se-
cured in China authentic seeds of this species, and soon we had
brought together the largest collection of Old World species in
the world at the Torrey Pines field station of the Bureau of Plant
Industry, near San Diego, California. Two Chinese species and
two Indian ones grew well in the United States and produced
fair amounts of ephedrin. When the Japanese invasion of North
China, beginning in 1937, closed our access to the ma huang of
North China and Mongolia, it looked at first as if Ephedra would*
have to be grown on a large scale in our country. However, it
proved possible to make ephedrin synthetically (something very
unusual for a medicinal alkaloid) and now the synthetic product
supplies the throat and nose specialisfs. Market quotations show,
however, that the natural product extracted from the Chinese
ma huang is rated higher than the synthetic drug. It may yet
prove possible to produce natural ephedrin at a small profit on
some of the Indian Reservations in Arizona, where Indian chil-
dren could collect the plants.

Some idea of the extent of the European and American litera-
ture regarding the plants of the Chinese region, that is, Indo-
China, China, Manchuria, Korea, and eastern Siberia, is shown by
the fact that a recently published bibliography of Eastern Asiatic
botany by E. D. Merrill and E. H. Walker contains about 73,-
500 titles of books and articles on the plants of the Chinese re-
gion, all but about 250 in European languages.

A classified list of the articles in Chinese journals and bulletins
regarding agriculture published from 1858 to 1931, completed
by the Division of Agricultural History of the University of
Nanking, contains about 27,150 articles in Chinese, from 357
journals or bulletins, and 6,232 articles in English from 60 jour-
nals and bulletins— a grand total of 33,382 articles, all indexed by
subject. The supplement covering the years 1932-1934 contains
about 12,900 articles in Chinese from 555 journals and bulletins,
and 1,120 articles in English from 30 journals. The recent aston-
ishing growth of agricultural literature is shown by the fact that

102

the list for the three years, 1932-1934, contains 42 per cent of
the number in the main volume covering the 74 years from 1858
to 1931. Also the average number of Chinese papers per annum
in the 74-year period was 451, while just as the rape of Man-
churia occurred and just preceding the all-out Japanese attack on
China, they averaged 4,673 per annum, nearly n times as
many! As the Chinese return to peaceful pursuits after the war,
the world is certain to be surprised at the number and value
of the scientific studies on Chinese economic plants which will
be written by the people most interested and best informed about
them, the Chinese themselves. North Americans will automati-
cally play a very important part by collaborating with their Chi-
nese colleagues in this work, often getting new light on old prob-
lems by studying these crop plants under different climatic, soil,
and economic conditions from those of China.

PERSIA THE HOME OF ORCHARDS

Persia, now called Iran, and the near-by lands of Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Turkey, are the Garden of Eden of the fruits and nuts
of the world. Here delicious peaches, apricots, plums, and table
grapes without peer in the world and numerous vegetables grow
in almost every garden. The choicest nuts of the world, pistachio,
almond, and Persian walnut, are at home here. Many of these
fruits and nuts were carried to other countries long ago and even
reached the New World shortly after Columbus discovered
America.

A tenth-century geographical treatise, the Masalik al-Mama -
liky compiled by Ibn Haukal and translated by Sir William
Ouseley in 1800, speaks repeatedly of Persian cities and towns
famous for their orchards and gardens. For example, referring
to Berdaa, or Berda’, Ibn Haukal says, “For one day’s journey
the whole country is laid out in gardens and orchards. The fruits
are excellent, their filberts are better than those of Samarcand,
and their chestnuts superior to the chestnuts of Syria, and the
figs of Berda’ are more delicious than those of any other place.”

It is probable that some of the citrus fruits originated in Iran
or southern Arabia, but they have been cultivated so many cen-
turies that it is impossible to determine certainly their native

103

home. The citron was named by Linnaeus Citrus Medica , “apple
of the Medes”— after the people who were so closely associated
with the Persians in ancient times. The lemon has not been found
growing wild in any country, but is undoubtedly of Asiatic
origin. Perhaps it originated in the mountains of southern Arabia
well inside the tropics.

Our debt to Iran for such delicious fruits and nuts is likely
to become still greater, because every visit made to Iran by our
agricultural explorers has resulted in bringing to this country
some new fruit or vegetable. Dr. William E. Whitehouse of the
U. S. Plant Exploration and Introduction Service, for example, on
his last trip to Iran found many good varieties of pistache in-
cluding some with giant nuts never seen outside of Iran, and,
while studying them in the mountains of Iran, he obtained
many other promising fruit trees.

OUR DEBT TO INDIA

To India the whole tropical and subtropical world owes a
great debt for the mango, probably the most noted and certainly
the most beautiful and most delicious of any of the widely cul-
tivated subtropical fruits. What Babur, the founder of the Mogul
Empire, said of this fruit in his memoirs published in 1525 is still
true—“Many are eaten but few are good, such mangoes as are
good are excellent.” In justification of Babur’s dictum, it should
be remarked that the best mangoes, when fully ripe, are beyond
praise, but poor seedlings or even immature fruits of good vari-
eties may be almost inedible. Fortunately the mango is now ac-
climatized and fruiting abundantly in south Florida and in most
of the Central and South American countries and the islands of
the West Indies, as well as in all the tropical regions of the East.
Dr. David Fairchild, who organized the Plant Introduction Serv-
ice of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, for many years
sought out all the best mangoes of India, Indo-China, and the
Dutch East Indies (PL zj).

We are likely to incur a large debt to India for the zebu, Bos
indicus (PL 16, 77), a humped species of cattle of which many
breeds are known. This species is certain to play a steadily in-
creasing role in our Southern states in the production of zebu

104

hybrids which can stand high temperatures much better than
European breeds of cattle and are able to graze all day in bright
sunshine. As there are a great number of breeds of zebu in India,
some fast walkers, some good milk-yielders, it is highly probable
that it will be necessary to introduce many of these breeds in
order to find the best ones to use in hybridizing, both for beef
and for dairy cattle for our Southern states. Zebus were intro-
duced into Texas early in this century and by their use the Santa
Gertrudis hybrid has been created and has shown itself able to
endure hot weather which forces ordinary cattle to stop graz-
ing and seek the shade.

Although the hybrids between zebu and European breeds of
cattle are able to graze all day in the sun without showing distress,
it has been found that zebu oxen doing heavy work are better
than hybrid oxen, and light-colored zebu oxen, like the bull
shown in PL 16, are able to do heavier work in hot climates
than the dark-colored breeds. Zebus of the Guzerat breed are
often very light colored (Pl. 16 ), and are used in the hotter
regions of tropical Brazil for heavy work. Zebu hybrids are
now common in Southern Florida and are widely used in Brazil,
where much attention is given to breeding good pure-blood zebu
bulls. Zebu hybrids have made a very good record in Queensland
Australia, as is shown in Dr. R. B. Kelley’s Bulletin 172, “Zebu-
Cross Cattle in Northern Australia.”

THE ORIGINAL HOME OF GARDEN VEGETABLES

The great Hindu Kush region, which borders on a half-dozen
different Asiatic countries, is apparently a storehouse of superior
wild or semiwild strains of some of our most important cultivated
crops. The carrot, for example, was until recently supposed to
have originated by selection from the wild carrot (a roadside
weed in Europe and America). It is now asserted by experts that
this cannot be true and that the garden carrot is apparently de-
rived from some Central Asiatic species still inadequately known.
Recently a carrot was found growing in Persia which, when
tested in the United States, showed high resistance to some of the
worst carrot diseases.

The same thing was found true of the cantaloupe. About fif-

io5

teen years ago the new and dangerous powdery mildew disease
threatened to destroy the whole cantaloupe industry. Fortunately
cantaloupe seeds were obtained from northern India and some of
the seedlings showed very high resistance to the disease. After a
few years the expert plant breeders of the Bureau of Plant Indus-
try and of the University of California, in friendly co-operation,
created new strains which enabled cantaloupe growing to remain
one of the leading industries of California and Arizona. The plant
breeders found no resistance to this disease in any of the many
strains of cantaloupes secured from other parts of the world.

Hundreds of millions of dollars arc invested in the American
truck crop industries and several tens of millions of dollars in sales
are made annually. The crops are, most of them, produced by an-
nual plants and must be planted anew every year. As soon as a
disease appears, every effort is made to breed new and disease-
resistant varieties rather than face the almost impossible task of
spraying the vast fields of truck crops. An onion with a tight-
fitting ligule at the junction of the leaf which prevents thrips, one
of the worst enemies of the onion, from gaining access to the sensi-
tive stems was recently discovered by a plant explorer in a moun-
tain village in Persia. This was so important that breeding work
was at once inaugurated to give the onions grown by truck
farmers protection from their worst enemy. In the Hindu Kush
region and adjacent mountainous countries, wild relatives of our
principal truck crop plants have won the fight against the fungi
and bacteria as well as against adverse climatic conditions. Their
good qualities can be transferred by skillful plant breeders to our
choicest varieties of vegetables without any evident change in ap-
pearance or quality. Doubtless many other important plants with
high resistance to disease and to extremes of temperatures will be
found in the mountain valleys, foothill slopes, and plateaus in Iran,
Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, Western China, Chinese Tur-
kistan, and in Tajikistan and others of the Soyiet states of south-
ern Siberia.

OUR DEBT TO SIBERIA

The hardy, high-yielding, hard wheat varieties which were in-
troduced into the United States early in the twentieth century

io 6

revolutionized wheat culture and extended profitable agriculture
hundreds of miles westward in the Great Plains States, as well as
far to the North both in the United States and Canada. Some of
these new wheats were introduced from Russia, but doubtless all
of them originally came from Siberia. Mark A. CarLeton brought
most of these wheat varieties to this country through the Plant
Introduction Service of the Bureau of Plant Industry.

Both Carleton and N. E. Hansen of South Dakota (who made
five extended trips to Siberia from 1898 to 1924— two for the
Plant Introduction Service and three for the state of South Da-
kota) brought new and superior varieties of another cereal, proso
or panicled millet, highly esteemed by the Chinese since remote
antiquity. Hansen reports that he “found a white-seeded variety
of proso at Semipalatinsk, Siberia, in 1913 among the Kirghiz
Tartars who grew it extensively as a grain for themselves and
their livestock. It is the cornerstone of their agriculture in this
eight-inch rainfall climate, a sure crop in the driest years.” Proso,
Hansen says, matures a crop in sixty days. In eastern Tibet and
western China it is grown at very high levels in the plateaus
where ordinary crops cannot ripen. This new-old cereal has
succeeded not only in South Dakota but also in other Great
Plains states where a short-season crop is needed on account of
scanty rainfall. It has been tested for many years at Akron, in
eastern Colorado, at an altitude of about forty-six hundred feet,
in the Field Station of the Division of Dry Land Agriculture of
the Bureau of Plant Industry in co-operation with the Colorado
Experiment Station. The Turghai variety sent from Western Si-
beria in 1906 by Hansen has given yields as high as 57 bushels
per acre in favorable seasons.

Hansen also obtained hardy Siberian apples and crabapples,
pears, and ornamental trees and shrubs as well as many varieties of
alfalfa. Among them was one yellow-flowered alfalfa able to
grow at Verkhoyansk, the “north pole of cold,” the coldest point
known in Asia, where a temperature as low as 91 0 below zero
Fahrenheit has been recorded. In recent years the crested wheat
grass and other forage grasses from Siberia have been very largely
planted in the United States, especially in the Northern Great
Plains and Montana. Thanks to the new and comprehensive
Flora of the U.S.S.R. which has been in course of publication

107

for several years, it will be easy to draw further on the rich flora
of Siberia as well as of European Russia. Undoubtedly this will
increase our indebtedness to the vast Asiatic territories of our
brave ally.

OUR DEBT TO THE ARABS

When the Plant Introduction Service of the U. S. Department
of Agriculture was first organized, some forty-odd years ago, I
began to send to Washington seeds and plants from the Mediter-
ranean regions of Europe, Africa, and Asia Minor. These included
the first offshoots of superior named varieties of date palms to be
landed successfully in the New World and also for the first time
the all-important Blastophaga , a tiny wasp which carries the pol-
len from the Capri fig (male tree) to the fertile flowers of the
best fig varieties of the Smyrna type, which do not fruit unless
the fig wasp pollinates them. These two fruit trees are among the
finest which we owe to Asia.

Many Americans have never even thought of asking whether
we owe any agricultural debt to the Arabs. Yet, we do owe them
much, because we have many desert regions very like those of
Arabia and North Africa, although our deserts are smaller and
more easily watered from the neighboring mountains. Europe
has no such deserts; and because we still think much like Euro-
peans, we have failed to realize that the deserts in our Southwest
are rapidly becoming the most productive regions in our whole
country.

The Arabs showed conspicuous ability in agriculture at a very
early date. Although they migrated into North Africa about the
middle of the seventh century, their agricultural discoveries were
all, or almost all, made in Asia and carried west into Tripoli, the
Barbary states, and the Iberian peninsula.

By their skillful methods of culture and of selection of new va-
rieties, the Arabs perfected the date palm, a crop plant which
produces more well-mineralized, high-flavored, nutritious, and
healthy human food per acre than is yielded by any other tem-
perate-zone crop— as much as 8 or 9 tons of cured fruit per acre is
sometimes harvested in Coachella Valley date gardens near Palm
Springs, California.

108

The Arabs say “the date palm must have its feet in running
water and its head in the fires of heaven.” Often where Amer-
ican irrigation engineers would see no possibility of developing
an adequate supply of water for irrigating the thirsty date palms,
the Arabs can and do develop amazing irrigation systems. If an
Arab digs a well and finds a water-bearing stratum yielding a
few gallons of water a day, he at once digs another a few hun-
dred yards away and if he finds the same water-bearing stratum,
he excavates a tunnel connecting these two wells. If each well is
3 feet in diameter, then each will have cut the water stratum for
a distance of 9.4 feet, or 18.8 for the two wells. If the wells are
100 yards apart, the connecting tunnel will cut 300 feet on each
wall, or a total of 600 feet on the water-bearing stratum. Suppose
the water stratum yields 3 gallons a day for each 10 feet of cut,
then each well will yield about 1.9 gallons a day and the tunnel
180 gallons! If a mile long such a tunnel will yield more than
3,000 gallons a day. Often such tunnels run for miles with wells
every few hundred yards and the flow at the end of the tunnels
suffices to irrigate a large oasis planted to date palms, other fruit
trees, and vegetables. These irrigation works are called foggara
and are found from Morocco to the slopes around the Gobi in
northwestern China, in all semiarid countries ever occupied by
Arabs or by other Mohammedan peoples.

A few years ago while obtaining offshoots of a remarkable date
variety, the Medjhool (still famous in Spain where it is called the
Barbary date), I had occasion to study a date garden in the out-
skirts of the famous Tafilalt region of southern Morocco. This
garden was watered from a canal bordered by date palms. In or-
der to be sure that none of the palms had the baioudh (blanch-
ing) disease, which could contaminate the water, I inspected all
of them until I came to the place where subterranean foggara
supplied the water flowing in the canal. From this point I could
see for miles across the barren desert, regularly spaced piles of
dirt, which indicated the wells through which the accumulated
silt in the foggara had from time to time been removed from the
large, nearly horizontal tunnels connecting the series of wells. I
brought offshoots from one of these healthy date palms back to
the United States, and they were planted in southern Nevada
with the help of Mr. Frank Thackery on July 4, 1927. These

109

Medjhool date palms grew very well in Nevada, but a few years
later had to be transferred to the United States Experiment Date
Garden at Indio, California, because of scarcity of water on the
tiny Indian farm where they were so well started. This variety
shows great promise in the Coachella Valley, the leading date-
growing community in the United States.

Another equally striking method of irrigating is exemplified
in the sunken date gardens of the Souf country in southern Tu-
nisia (PL 18). In this barren region where almost nothing but
sand can be seen in any direction, the Arab date growers discov-
ered, apparently centuries ago, that by digging into the sand,
moisture is found at a certain level. Extensive gardens were then
excavated and date offshoots of the Deglet Noor and other choice
date varieties were planted in this moist sand. At first sight there
seems to be no water supply, and even if wells could be devel-
oped the dates could not have been made to grow on the sand
hills without very frequent irrigatiorT, since water sinks rapidly in
loose sand and wastes away below the level of the roots. By
planting the date palm just above a permanently moist layer of
sand the costly labor of developing wells and irrigating is made
unnecessary. But the sunken gardens must be protected from
sandstorms by palm-leaf windbreaks built over the surrounding
sand hills. When great sandstorms occur often, the windbreaks
are unable to stop the blowing sand. Then the entire population
of these oases of the Souf are called out to work day and night
carrying the sand out of the gardens to prevent the famous old
date palms from being smothered to death. Probably such sunken
date gardens are made in Arab lands wherever a water-bearing
layer of sand or gravel is underlain with a layer of gypsum or
clay impervious to water. It may be that sunken gardens could
be developed with profit in some parts of our Southwest.

Olives, almonds, pomegranates, oranges, and lemons, all of
which are grown by the Arabs under the partial shade of the
canopy of date fronds far above them, succeed better there than
without such protection from the intense sunlight of desert re-
gions. In the United States we have only begun to utilize such
shaded orchards, which are found wherever Arabs have estab-
lished themselves. Experts report on the average about one hun-
dred and forty fruit trees grown per acre in the wonderful date

i io

gardens of Iraq. And underneath the deeper shade of these fruit
trees, sheltered from the burning sun, grow flowers and vegeta-
bles, thus making the land support willingly three tiers of crops—
first, the leafy palms high in the air, then the friendly fruit trees,
having their laden branches within easy reach, and finally, below
them, delicious vegetables and berries or lovely flowers.

The greatest single collection of date palm varieties in the whole
world was assembled in the United States from Mesopotamia,
Muscat, Iran, and Baluchistan, as well as from Egypt and the
Barbary States of North Africa, during the first three decades of
this century. This collection was started in 1900 when I intro-
duced into the New World, for the first time, offshoots from
choice Old World varieties. Thanks to a new system of packing,
these offshoots grew as well as if they had been planted by the
Arabs in an adjoining garden in the Sahara. Today the date gar-
dens of southern California and southern Arizona are in many
ways the best managed in the world and the most profitable. More
than one hundred choice varieties have been tested there and half
a dozen varieties are grown on a large scale, producing some 20,-
000,000 pounds, about % of the dates consumed annually in the
United States (PL 19), Through a vast region nearly half the size
of Arabia flow perennially the waters of the great Colorado and
Rio Grande rivers, and here we have perfected the art of irrigation
as nowhere else in the world. Our knowledge of this art and of
date growing will now return to help the Old World. King Ibn
Saud recently sent American engineers on a ten thousand mile
trip to study the sources of water available in the drier parts of
Arabia. Thanks to the recent discovery of one of the largest oil
fields in the world, this water can now be lifted from deep wells
by using this cheap fuel, and literally make the barren desert
bloom.

THE ARABIAN HORSE

One of the greatest gifts of Asia to the world is the wonderful
Arabian horse. It is easily domesticated, yet spirited and intelli-
gent, very strong (able to stand galloping for hours over sand),
and lives to a ripe old age (35 years or so). As the automobile
and the tractor drive out the draft horse from common use, we

are almost certain to return more and more to man’s first use of
the horse as the proudest, most beautiful, and most lovable riding
animal man ever knew. In our Southwestern states, the climate
favors the retention of the superlative qualities of the Arabs'
chief contribution to our outdoor life— his unrivaled steed. For-,
tunately there are several good collections of Arabian horses in
the United States, and one of these is now the property of the
University of California, donated in perpetuity to the University
by W. K. Kellogg, together with a great estate near Pomona,
California, especially chosen and fully equipped to provide a
proper home for these splendid animals. Carl R. Schmidt, who
helped Clark build up the fine stud of Arabian horses in Indio,
California, before its purchase by Kellogg, has published under
his nom de plume Carl R. Raswan some small parts of his vo-
luminous notes on the rules of breeding the breeds and strains of
Arabian horses ( The Black Tents of Arabia: My Life among the
Bedouins, London, 1942).

The remarkable achievements of the Arabs in horse breeding
have been summarized as follows by Victor A. Rice:

“The development of the Arabian horse by the Bedouins of
the desert is generally recognized as the first great achievement
in animal breeding of which there is any definite record. Because
the Bedouins’ safety often hinged upon the speed and endurance
of their horses, these people surrounded their breeding operation
with an air of superstition and mystery, much of which has per-
sisted in certain quarters to the present day.”

There are several breeds of Arab horses and numerous strains,
the latest work which discusses this moot subject is Lady Went-
worth’s imposing work ( Thoroughbred Racing Stock and its
Ancestors, London, 1938).

Our first enlightening account of the Arab horse was that pub-
lished about sixty-five years ago by Lady Anne Noel Blunt and
her poet husband Wilfred Scawen Blunt (A Pilgrimage to Nejd ,
London, 1881).

According to Pycraft (Pycraft, W. P., in J. Walker McSpad-
den et al, Animals of the World, 1941- 1942) the British thor-
oughbred was built up by an infusion of Arab blood into “the
swiftest horse which the world has ever known.” He also says the
American trotting horse is a “Combination of barb and Arab on

1 12

an English stock.” The barb horse itself, a splendid animal at its
best, seems to have been produced by the breeding of Arab
horses with native North African stock. Many of the best horses
of Spain and of Spanish America have an infusion of Arab blood.
Pycraft gives a superb photograph of an Arab mare with its
rider, Lady Wentworth herself ( Plate 20).

Doubtless the crossbreeding of Arab horses, freed from the
complicated conventions of the Arabs, and practiced by scientific
experts, will lead to the creation of superior horses for every field
left open to them in our automotive world of the future.

FUTURE BORROWINGS FROM ASIA

American borrowing has by no means exhausted the plant re-
sources of Asia. Hundreds, probably many hundreds, of new
crop plants and new ornamental or drug plants are certain to be
found either wild or under culture in Asia and many of them will
some day be grown in the United States and other countries. In
addition we must search out and import many more wild relatives
of our cereals, garden vegetables, fruit trees, and drug plants. Our
losses from recently introduced plant diseases, such as chestnut
blight, citrus canker, and cantaloupe mildew (all of them un-
known before 1900) have amounted to scores of millions of
dollars. Citrus canker fortunately was eradicated, but if it had
not been killed out in this country, it would have destroyed all
orange and grapefruit groves in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas
and it would have been necessary to spend many years breed-
ing canker-resistant varieties of oranges and grapefruit by
using Chinese and Siamese citrus varieties immune to canker.
Cantaloupe mildew was conquered by using half-wild melons
from northern India for crossbreeding with the susceptible va-
rieties in this country. Blight-resistant chestnuts were found in
China and Indo-China and the tree breeders have already made
promising hybrids between them and our own chestnut now well
on the way to extinction. But new plant diseases may make sud-
den inroads at any time.

World War II interrupted a very successful search by the
Plant Introduction Service of the Bureau of Plant Industry, not
only for new Asiatic plants but for wild relatives of the Asiatic

1 13

crop plants we now grow. Perhaps in the future we can establish
in several climatic regions of the United States permanent gar-
dens planted to these wild relatives so they will be always on
hand for use when needed and not have to be sought for hur-
riedly at very high cost after great damage to our own crop plants
has already been done.

REPAYMENT OF OUR DEBT TO ASIA

From 1915 to 1930 T. Ralph Robinson, Eugene May, and I
worked out methods to permit the introduction of canker-resist-
ant varieties of citrus mentioned above from China, Thailand, the
Philippines, and Japan without danger of introducing insect pests
or fungous and bacterial diseases. The plants from the Orient were
held in screened and oil-moated quarantine greenhouses near
Washington, D.C. Each plant was grown in a small screened cage
inside the greenhouse until clean twigs developed which could be
used for propagating. These twigs were then cut off, under
aseptic precautions, and budded on clean citrus seedlings growing
in another screened greenhouse. When these buds had made vig-
orous growth the original imported plants were destroyed com-
pletely-burnt in a furnace along with the soil in which they had
grown. This system is now used by the Plant Introduction Service
of the United States Department of Agriculture at Glenn Dale,
Md. Now this aseptic plant propagation system can be reversed
and disease- and pest-free strains of economic plants from other
parts of the world can be sent to China and other Asiatic coun-
tries in exchange for the many valuable fruits, trees, grains, and
medicinal and ornamental plants we have secured from them.

Stephen B. L. Penrose, Jr., and Oliver J. Caldwell

TIES THAT BIND

AMERICAN contacts with Asia have been primarily of
three types: commercial, governmental, and those which may be
described as private and civilian. The authors of this chapter will
discuss the nature and origin of certain popular ideas regarding
the peoples who live in Asia and some of the institutional channels
through which they have been derived. The main emphasis will
thus be placed on social agencies which have acted as bonds be-
tween the populations of the East and West. Anglo-Saxon con-
tacts, and in particular American relations since 1900, will be
stressed. Limited space prohibits extensive historical discussion. It
is obvious, however, that what has happened during the twentieth
century in our relations with Asia has been for the most part a
flowering of seed planted earlier. The confusion and knowledge
which have long existed in the public mind, indeed most beliefs
and misconceptions concerning Asiatics, are in the main a result
of the work of social agencies and movements which have influ-
enced the conduct of cultural relations between the hemispheres.

When one seeks to analyze the impression which the so-called
“average” American has of the Near East, as distinct from those
who have deliberately sought information, one finds that it is apt
to be a curious melange of notions, images, feelings, and preju-
dices, the source of which is frequently obscure and the content
of which is usually vague. Yet analysis will reveal that there is
much that is actually specific in the general impression. Ameri-
cans have far more information, much of it erroneous, about the

Il5

Near East than they are apt to believe possible on first thought.
Leaving out of account events connected with the world wars,
and all concern with anything but the non-European part of the
area, it will be worth while to point out some of the ways in
which the Near East has impinged on the American conscious-
ness.

Consider the countries included in the area. Turkey, Syria and
Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Trans j or dania, Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Persia, Ethiopia— though some of these are not in the strict sense
part of Asia, they are all involved. Listing them separately breaks
up the first general idea that the Near East is all sand and camels,
and brings into view a series of rather definite stereotypes familiar
to most of us. Observe them as they march before us.

Turkey: the Terrible Turk (a famous wrestler-strong-man of
supposed brutality who appeared on the American scene in the
early part of this century); hook nose, bulbous body in baggy
pantaloons, red fez perched on small head, possibly a handle-bar
mustache; the harem beauty: sloe-eyed, heavily veiled, and wear-
ing little else but long pantaloons and turned-up slippers; sultans
of unimaginable wealth living in tiled palaces, lolling on wide
divans, smoking water pipes, drinking coffee served by obse-
quious slaves, amused by dancing girls very sparsely clothed, sur-
rounded by a thousand wives. The men, sly, treacherous, cruel,
deceitful, fond of torturing enemies and slaves; the women, mys-
terious, heavily guarded, beautiful, desirable, enchanting; the land
filled with luxurious palaces and domed mosques with needle-like
minarets.

The Arab countries (generally including everything except
Turkey): sand and more sand, stately camels plodding slowly
over the dunes, oases with palm trees, pyramids, sphinx; the men,
tall, stately, handsome, eagle-eyed, hook-nosed, brave, wearing
flowing robes and head cloths, given to wild riding of fiery horses
with much rifle shooting; the women, seldom visible, heavily
veiled, almost a minus quantity.

These are two examples of common stereotypes and it is rather
easy to trace their origins. Primarily they come from highly
imaginative motion pictures like The Thief of Bagdad and The
Sheik, through which Rudolph Valentino captured the imagina-
tion of countless Americans and added a new word to adolescent

ii 6

vocabularies. They also derive from the Arabian Nights tales,
often beautifully illustrated. They are made more specific by our
familarity with Persian rugs, brassware, inlaid furniture. They
have perhaps been confirmed by cartoonists who inevitably char-
acterize nations in their drawings according to popular stereo-
types of their citizens. This analysis is superficial, for each
individual may have been subject to varying influences, but it will
probably fit a considerable number of cases.

The unfortunate thing about these stereotypes is that they are
hopelessly erratic. Many of their possessors will freely admit this
fact, and when pressed for more detailed and accurate informa-
tion will be able to produce it. For though it is typical for the
majority of us to think in pictures, Americans have a surpris-
ingly large number of personal connections with the Near East
which can provide more accurate and circumstantial knowledge.
These connections have a modern history extending well over a
hundred years.

Moving across desert, mountain, and ocean, we come to India.
The popular American conception of the people of India is ap-
parently a composite of snake charmers, hideous idols, elephants,
and mysterious ladies hidden behind veils. We know that there is
great poverty as well as great wealth in India, and that the popu-
lation is divided into unfriendly groups. What we do not gen-
erally realize is the richness of her culture, and the profundity
of her philosophy, which is thousands of years older than Gandhi.
Yet in spite of our ignorance, India and her problems are now
matters of prime importance to every American, and the manner
of the solution of these problems will affect the lives of millions
of Americans as yet unborn.

Still farther east are the Indies, and there are few parts of the
world concerning which the average American is more ignorant.
Popular books and motion pictures have conspired to create an il-
lusion of sensuous glamour about the East Indies and their people.
Solid historical and geographical facts regarding this region have
had little circulation in the public mind on our side of the Pacific.
One reason for this is doubtless that European imperialism has
dominated the islands of the East since the time of Columbus.
Jealous Western powers have competed for control of these rich
islands, and most of our contacts have been indirect and commer-

cial. The average American has discovered the Indies only since
the first World War, and has been intimately aware of their ex-
istence only since December 7, 1941.

Among all the peoples of Asia, the Chinese have traditionally
been our best friends. Whereas the Japanese have been regarded
for many years with increasing suspicion and distrust, our rela-
tions with the Chinese people have grown increasingly cordial.
It is a remarkable fact that the Chinese, about whom the typical
American actually knows very little, are regarded in general with
a sentimental trust and admiration, an attitude not to be found in
our relations with any other Oriental people.

Yet it was not always so; in the not distant past there were
race riots against the Chinese on our Pacific coast. In 1900 the
United States participated in an international military expedition
against the Chinese Empire. There has long been a conflict be-
tween several popular concepts regarding the Chinese.

One was the Dr. Fu Manchu legend, which was created by the
popular novels written by Sax Rohmer. According to this con-
ception, the Chinese were a race of wily rogues with sparse,
drooping mustaches, and an unholy appetite for opium and white
ladies in distress. This picture competed with another, which de-
picted the average Chinese as a clever and taciturn follower of
Confucius, so honest that he did not use written contracts, so
thrifty that he was never in debt, wise and honorable in all his
dealings, and a model for less civilized people. There were other
popular conceptions. Many Americans before 1937 looked toler-
antly upon the Chinese as a race of peaceable laundrymen and
cooks.

The heroic resistance of the masses of the Chinese people
against Japanese aggression did much to defeat the believers in
Dr. Fu Manchu, and at the same time modified the prevailing idea
that the Chinese are Confucian pacifists. There is possibly no
foreign people concerning whom the average American is funda-
mentally more ignorant than he is about the Chinese, but he is
nevertheless convinced that the Chinese are our friends, and are
fundamentally all right.

We know little about the people of Japan, partly because the
leaders of the Japanese people have apparently not wanted us to
understand them. This means that we have had a series of impres-

118

sions of the Japanese, all of them partly untrue. It is doubtful if
we will form an accurate picture of these people for years to
come.

Gilbert and Sullivan played an important part in the develop-
ment of Anglo-Saxon misconceptions of the Japanese. The
Mikado has done much not only to entertain its listeners but also
to create a dangerously false impression of the little men of
Titipu. It is notable that our ideas concerning Oriental peoples in
general have been profoundly affected by motion pictures and
popular books which have created a romantic fog through which
the truth is often not to be discerned. The romantic ignorance
of the American people regarding the Japanese and other Asiatics
has been reinforced by a callow assumption of complete racial
superiority.

It is well for us to remember that there was a time in the not
distant past when Americans looked with benevolent friendliness
on the Japanese, who were regarded as giant-killers during
their war with Russia. There was a great deal of pro-Japanese
feeling during that war, and among intellectuals of the period
there was a profound interest in the Japanese people aroused and
nourished by such writers as Lafcadio Hearn. The latter regarded
the Japanese as the modem Greeks, and apparently was con-
vinced that they embodied most of the more worth-while human
virtues.

America’s friendship with Japan rapidly deteriorated in pro-
portion to Japan’s rise as an international power. Part of the de-
terioration was our own fault, growing out of our arrogance and
our unwillingness to deal with Japan on equal terms. In any event,
the Japanese militarists have created concerning the Japanese
people as a whole an indelible impression on the American mind.
We look upon the Japanese as cruel, crafty, and utterly untrust-
worthy. It is hard for most Americans to conceive of any large
number of decent people in Japan. It will be many years before
the Japanese and American peoples will be able to deal with each
other on an open and friendly basis.

One of the most important bonds between Americans and
Asiatics has been the Christian missionary movement. The moti-
vation of this movement is the Biblical command, “Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel.” The fundamental assumption
of the missionaries is that they bear “good tidings and great joy”
concerning the one true way to salvation.

There have been many kinds of missionaries. Some by their
fanaticism have discredited the whole movement, others have
been unofficial ambassadors and have done much to create inter-
national good will based on mutual understanding. Many mission-
aries have grown in wisdom through their contacts with ancient
cultures, and have become zealous spokesmen in America for the
people they were sent to convert to Christianity.

Missionaries have been for the average church-going American
his only direct contact with remote alien peoples. The missionary
movement has thus become a matter of considerable sociological
significance, and must occupy a prominent place in this discus-
sion.

American missionary activity has been constant in the Near
East since 1820, when the ten-year-old American Board of Com-
missioners for Foreign Missions began operations in Turkey,
Syria, and Palestine. Pliny Fisk was the pathfinder. He was fol-
lowed in Syria during the middle of the nineteenth century by
such men, well known in the America of their day, as Dr. Henry
H. Jessup, Dr. Cornelius V. A. Van Dyck, translator of the Bible
into Arabic, Simeon Calhoun, the “Saint of the Lebanon,” and
Daniel Bliss, who went out for the American Board in 1855 and
ten years later founded the Syrian Protestant College (later the
American University of Beirut) of which he became the first
president. In Turkey at approximately the same period was the
famous Cyrus Hamlin, who provided bread for the ill-fed British
soldiers in the Crimean War, and later founded Robert College
of Constantinople.

During the “Great Century” of religious development other
denominations in addition to the Congregationalism Presbyterian,
and Dutch Reformed churches, which united in the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1826, promoted

120

work in the area, though the three original churches continued
to exercise the majority influence. When separate Presbyterian
and Dutch Reformed mission boards were later established, the
Near Eastern field was divided among them by agreement. The
Congregationalist in Turkey, the Presbyterians in Syria and
Persia, the Dutch Reformed in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Arabia,
the United Presbyterians in Egypt, and a legion of representatives
of other missions in various parts of these countries have kept
alive in America a vigorous concern with the spiritual affairs of
the Near East. And since spiritual affairs are inseparable for prac-
tical purposes from physical and cultural affairs, there has been
a constant stream of information flowing back from abroad to
large areas of American Christendom.

The impetus of the missionary effort gave rise to the establish-
ment of schools, primarily in order to overcome the widespread
illiteracy of the Near Eastern countries at that period, and thus
make possible the reading of the Bible and religious literature.
The existing Arabic type was found to be inadequate for the
printing requirements of the mission, so the missionaries designed
a new font, which was cast in Leipzig, in 1 849, under the direc-
tion of Rev. Eli Smith. This type style, which was used for print-
ing Dr. Van Dyck’s translation of the Bible, is still used through-
out the Arabic-speaking countries and is still universally known
as American Arabic.

Since there was in the early eighteen hundreds no satisfactory
system of secondary education in operation in the Near East, it
was a natural step for the missionaries to create high schools and
then colleges in order to develop the capacities for leadership in
local churches and in the governments of the countries them-
selves. Some of these colleges remained under the control of, or
closely related to the mission boards, like Anatolia College, origi-
nally of Marsovan, Turkey, and now of Salonika, Greece, or the
American University of Cairo, Egypt. But because the cost of
higher education was greater than mission boards could usually
afford to support, a number of these institutions were developed
under separate leadership and came in time to obtain the financial
backing of a large American clientele of their own.

The outstanding example of institutions of this latter type is
the group of six great colleges which, for administrative effi-

1 2 x

ciency, have been organized into the Near East College Associa-
tion. The component institutions in the Association, with the
dates of their establishment and latest enrollment figures, are as
follows:

Institution

Estab .

Enroll

Robert College of Istanbul, Turkey

1863

1 100

American University of Beirut, Lebanon
International College, (formerly of

1866'

r 22^7

Smyrna, Turkey, now of Beirut)

1903

American College of Sofia, Bulgaria

i860

Woman’s College of Istanbul, Turkey

1890

470

Athens College, Athens, Greece

1925

450

All of these colleges are chartered in the

United States and

each has its own board of trustees. They all conform to the best
American educational standards and their graduates have a rec-
ognized status in the field of American education. Robert College
has a high ranking engineering school, to which the Turkish gov-
ernment now sends a number of selected students. The American
University of Beirut has first-class schools of medicine, pharmacy,
and nursing which have practically created those professions in
the Near East.

It would be beyond the scope of this discussion to consider the
service which these institutions have rendered to the Near East,
but it is pertinent to look at what they have done for American-
Near East relations. Quite aside from the fact that they and the
other American philanthropic enterprises have built a firm foun-
dation of friendship between the Near Eastern peoples and the
United States, they are a living monument of American interest
in the Near East. Combined, these six institutions alone represent
an investment of some $21,000,000 in plant and endowment. On
the faculty of the American University of Beirut alone have been
graduates of nearly 120 American colleges and universities. Many
of these former teachers have become experts on Near Eastern
affairs, and most of them have been enthusiasts on the Near East,
spreading the light of knowledge and interest among their associ-
ates at home. At the present time there are many former teach-
ers of these colleges serving the Government at Washington in
various capacities related to the Near East.

122

Within the past three years the Near East College Association
has begun an effort to provide information on the Near East for
people in America, regardless of whether or not they have ac-
tively supported the colleges in the past. The Near East Service,
which was started by the Association in 1939, publishes a printed
and illustrated Quarterly; a monthly Bulletin giving brief inter-
pretations of recent Near Eastern events; and a series of “Special
Articles,” published by the Service when material is available,
dealing in detail with some particular aspect of life or thought in
the Near East. Typical of the last are the series of articles on Re-
ligious Sects of the Near East: Christian, Moslem, and sects
neither Christian nor Moslem. All these publications are distrib-
uted to annual members of the Near East Service, the avowed
purpose of which is “to interpret the Near East to the West.”

Another organization which aroused a great interest in a con-
siderable part of the Near East was the Near East Relief, set up
in 1915 to help save the lives of and settle in new areas the refugee
peoples uprooted as a result of the first World War. It has been
called editorially “the greatest single charity in the history of the
world.” Concentrating originally on the Armenians driven from
their homes in Turkey, the Near East Relief did noble service
also with the Greeks transplanted from Turkey during the ex-
change of populations following the Smyrna fire in 1922. Nearly
$ 1 16,000,000 was contributed by Americans to the Near East Re-
lief, which blanketed the country with its urgent appeals. Prob-
ably more Americans learned of the Near East through this
agency than had ever before known anything of it except that it
was an area on the map.

Unfortunately, in its concentration on the refugee appeal, the
Near East Relief painted a very black picture of Turkey and the
Turks, conveying widely the erroneous impression that they are
uniformly cruel, heartless, treacherous, and untrustworthy. It
tended to confirm the stereotype described at the beginning of
this chapter. The history of modern Turkey demonstrates the
falsity of this view, and it is with considerable justification that
the Turkish people resent it. Rightly or wrongly they hold the
Near East Relief responsible, and they have opposed the oper-
ation in Turkey of the Near East Foundation, which continued

i*3

some of the work of the Near East Relief when the latter was
liquidated in 1930.

The Near East Foundation, through its social and agricultural
development work in Bulgaria, Greece, and Syria, has likewise
contributed largely to the knowledge which Americans have of
the Near East. Operating with a less intensive program of pub-
licity than its predecessor and on a less impressive scale, it never-
theless obtains and merits the regular support of a large number
of contributors. Until the recent catastrophe in Greece, its activi-
ties had been devoted less to relief work than to a constructive
program of social welfare in co-operation with the governments
of the countries involved. In Syria, the Foundation and the Amer-
ican University of Beirut have joined forces in a village agricul-
tural program of great interest and significance.

Americans have been particularly interested in medical work
throughout the world, and support for this phase of fundamental
human service has been generously given to tlje East, both Near
and Far. Medical assistance has by no means been monopolized by
the Rockefeller Foundation, though that has been perhaps the
most generous single agency. All the mission boards have been in-
terested in medical work, possibly on the principle that the medi-
cal missionary, to quote Dr. Paul W. Harrison of Oman, Arabia,
“is simply an extra-legible version of the Christian.” But in many
cases the medical aspect of mission work has gained the financial
help of laymen who might otherwise have lacked interest. It
would be impossible to list all of the medical missions in the Near
East, but they exist in such widely scattered places as Muscat, on
the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia, Meshed and Tabriz in northern
Iran, Tripoli and isolated Deit-es-zor in Syria, and in various
towns of Turkey, Egypt, and the Sudan. All have their fascina-
tion, and all more than merit the support they have been given at
home.

By no means all of the medical work in the Near East has been
governed by mission boards. One may cite the American Wom-
en’s Hospitals in Greece and the American Hospital of Istanbul,
Turkey, now in a splendid new home, as institutions under sepa-
rate, private control. The work of Dr. Lorrin Shepard of Istanbul
is a romance in itself, and has received considerable publicity in
the American press. The hospital of the American University of

124

Beirut has also done amazing things to alleviate suffering in Syria.
These and many others are links in the chain of human sympathy
which binds America to the Near East.

An entirely different field which has attracted American inter-
est to the Near East is that of archaeology. Every American stu-
dent who has been exposed to a course in ancient history is aware
of the fact that much of our knowledge of ancient times has been
dug from the ground or gleaned from a study of ruins and monu-
ments which alone remained as evidence that a civilization had
passed away. A large number of American colleges and museums
have sent expeditions to the Near East, which, because it was the
cradle of Western civilization, is particularly rich in historic re-
mains.

Every educated American is familiar with the pyramids of
Egypt, and has probably seen pictures of Egyptian temples and
tombs. The discovery which probably aroused the greatest popu-
lar interest in Egyptian archaeology was that of the tomb of
Tutankhamen, opened by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon
in 1922. Although in actual historic significance this find was
hardly of greater importance than thousands of others, it captured
the American imagination. For a brief period it even had its re-
flection in the styles of women’s clothes— an indubitable evidence
of widespread interest.

Heinrich Schliemann’s verification of Homer by his excavation
of Troy is familiar to most Americans who know who Homer
was. The writings of James Henry Breasted, familiar as texts to
students of ancient history, were based upon excavations in Egypt
and other parts of the Near East. Archaeological expeditions from
the universities of Chicago, Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Princeton
are now far from being novelties to the American people. Though
the publication of their findings may not be widely read, they
have disseminated generally a considerable knowledge of the
Near East.

Outside the universities it may not be fully realized at first
thought how much public concern there is with the ancient Near
East. Yet nearly every important city in the country has a mu-
seum with at least some relics of the historic past, most of which
exercise a sort of fascination on those who observe them— and
they are many. Although archaeological societies as such may be

12*

neither numerous nor large in membership, the subject of archae-
ology is by no means without great popular appeal. Through it
as a medium the American people have, directly or indirectly, ac-
quired a considerable, if un-co-ordinated, knowledge of the Near
East. And in conjunction with other phases of classical scholar-
ship it has received sufficient financial support to make possible
such projects as the restoration of the Parthenon, the sending of
numerous expeditions for further exploration, and the establish-
ment, on the field, of schools for the training of archaeologists.
Among the last may be cited the American School of Gassical
Studies in Athens and the American Schools of Oriental Research
in Jerusalem and Bagdad.

Since the first World War, American interest in the Arabs has
tended to fade with the increased attention which has been given
to the plans for a Jewish national home in Palestine. Zionism has
been very largely supported by the contributions of American
Jews and it has brought Palestine well to the forefront of Ameri-
can consciousness. It cannot be said that Americans generally
have much awareness of the many problems involved in the pro-
posal for the establishment of a Jewish state, but they have cer-
tainly been made aware of the plan. The Zionist movement has
done much to link America to at least a small part of the Near
East with bonds of personal interest.

A movement like Zionism, which is so largely of a political na-
ture, is likely to provoke opposition from the friends of those
who seem likely to suffer by it. In this case the opposition has
been partly, as might be expected, among Americans of Syrian
or Palestinian or Iraqi descent, who supported the now defunct
Arab National League, devoted to presenting the Arab side of the
question. Another organization, the recent development of which
has been blocked by the illness or involvement in military or gov-
ernment service of some of its more active members, is the Ameri-
can Friends of the Arabs. This is much less closely connected
with actual Arab politics than was the League, and for that
reason, as well as for the fact that enrolled in it are many Ameri-
cans of prominence and influence, it may perhaps be more influ-
ential in the United States. Although it is handicapped by its
representation of a comparatively voiceless minority, the Ameri-

126

can Friends of the Arabs has brought to a considerable audience
an interest in Near Eastern affairs.

There has been a certain vogue to organizations of “American
Friends,” but their activity has fluctuated with the prominence in
world affairs of the countries to which they were devoted. For
example, both the American Friends of Turkey and the Ameri-
can Friends of Greece were very active following the first
World War, during the period of reconstruction whose miracles
succeeded that conflict. After a season of quiescence, the Ameri-
can Friends of Greece has been recently revived and is devoting
itself to securing aid and sympathy for the Greek people in the
hour of their present agony. The American Friends of the Near
East, another similar group, has been more constantly active be-
cause of its close association with the operations of the Near East
Foundation.

Here, then, are some of the channels through which knowledge
of the Near East has reached America. No mention has been
made of American commercial interests, which are fairly exten-
sive; nor of Arabian oil concessions to American companies,
which are astonishing; nor even of the spiritual ties which link
Christians, Jews, and Moslems to the cradle of world religions. All
these deserve mention. But even including them it must be admit-
ted that our knowledge of the Near East is more often than not
scanty, and partial. Yet it is encouraging to note an increasing in-
terest among Americans in the wider horizons. Motion pictures
and popular books which have created so many misimpressions,
have also fostered a constructive interest, or at least a healthy
curiosity, concerning alien peoples. Missionary and philanthropic
work have contributed greatly to an intelligent mutual under-
standing between Americans and the diverse population of the
Near East.

The first contacts of the English-speaking peoples with India
were purely predatory. It is shocking to the average reader of our
generation to encounter men like Warren Hastings and his virile
colleagues who conquered the Indian Empire for the Honorable
East India Company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
For many years the Company skimmed the cream of the wealth

127

of India. Not only were there few attempts to help or understand
the oppressed people of Southern Asia, who suddenly found
themselves victims of aggression, but there was active hostility on
the part of commercial and military interests towards any efforts
to improve the conditions of Asiatics.

As the people of Europe became increasingly civilized, the
British took over the conquests of the Honorable Company, and
conditions began to change for the better at about the time of the
American Revolution. These changes were in no small measure
a result of the pressure brought to bear by church groups in Eng-
land, who insisted on launching missionary enterprises, which,
later reinforced by American missionary societies, have resulted
in the enrolling of some 8,000,000 Hindus as Christians. Schools
and colleges were established for the benefit of all social classes
in India, and much of the progress that has been made by these
people in the past 150 years may be traced to the influence of
Christian enterprises.

American contacts with Indians have been strong in the mis-
sionary field. Some of the greatest figures in the Protestant church
have devoted their lives to the betterment of the people of India,
and have done much to create in America good will towards In-
dia. Such men as E. Stanley Jones, the Apostle of the Indian Road,
and Sam Higginbottam, beloved agriculturist, have been unofficial
two-way ambassadors between India and the American people,
and their books have exerted considerable influence on public
opinion in America. There is a strong reservoir of friendliness to-
wards India in America, and in India towards America, which is
a monument to the work of generations of missionaries.

Indian art and philosophy have also exerted strong influences in
intellectual circles. The philosophy of non-violence, which is
indigenous to India, has found an enthusiastic following among
many Americans, and has had an important part in the growth
of pacifism in America. There is a strong sentiment of respect in
this country towards the intellectual accomplishments of the peo-
ple of India. The manifestations of this respect range from the
ridiculous to the sublime, from an American prize fighter prac-
ticing Yoga to improve his punch, through sundry Hollywood
cults, theosophy, and offshoots of Buddhism, and culminate in a
growing intelligence concerning India and its problems.

128

It is characteristic that many servants of imperialism have been
conquered by the wealth of India’s culture as evidenced by the
following list of outstanding British societies devoted to bettering
relations between India and the West:

British Indian Union, 43 Chalkhill Road, Wembley, Middlesex—
for friendship and understanding between the two races.
Central Hindu Society of Great Britain, 43 Chalkhill Road,
Wembley, Middlesex— for exposition of Hindu philosophy
and for better mutual understanding.

Central Indian Colonial Association, 170 Adelaide Road, London,
N.W.3— to further interests of Indians living in British Colo-
nies.

East India Association, 3 Victoria Street, London, S.W.i— “to
promote, by all legitimate means, the welfare of the inhabi-
tants of India generally.”

The Indian Society (Arts and Letters), 3 Victoria Street, London
S.W.i— to promote the study of Indian art and literature.
Muslim Society in Great Britain, 18 Eccleston Square, London,
S.W.i— to further interests of Islam and Islamic Institutions.
Royal Asiatic Society, 74 Grosvenor Street, London, W.i.

Royal Central Asian Society, 8 Clarges Street, London, W.i.
Royal Society of Arts (India and Burma Section), 18 John
Adams Street, Adelphi, London W.C.2.

Society for the Study of Religions.

World Congress of Faiths, 2 Victoria Street, London, S.W.i.
School of Oriental and African Studies, Christ’s College, Cam-
bridge.

It is well for Americans, who sometimes are hypercritical about
British influence in India, to remember that there is a strong pro-
India sentiment in Britain, and that many Britishers have devoted
their lives to helping the people of India.

Most of what has been said above concerning relations with
India can be repeated for the East Indies. In recent years the
Dutch government has dealt with the peoples under its control
with friendly paternalism, and has frequently discouraged mis-
sionary enterprises; this has hampered the formation of strong
links with the American people. It was difficult even for tourists
to make the acquaintance of the Indies, because visas were fre-

129

quently hard to obtain. The discovery of Bali precipitated a flood
of round-the-world tourists, and created a smoke screen of ro-
mantic notions, as well as arousing a lot of healthy curiosity.
Had American missionary enterprise been encouraged, knowledge
of the Dutch East Indies might have matched that of other areas
of Asia.

If the total result of the work of the various sociological and
educational organizations interested in China and other Eastern
countries has been to create a strong bond of understanding and
friendship between the peoples of North America and the popu-
lation of most of the Asiatic mainland, it may well be asked why
tension has arisen with Japan. Our inter-cultural relations with
the Japanese people have in some ways been better developed
than has been the case with other northern Asiatic peoples. Fur-
thermore, the material civilization of the Japanese has more
nearly approached our own, and therefore it might have been
supposed that it would be more natural for friendship to exist be-
tween the Japanese and the American peoples than between the
Chinese and the Americans, with whom there were fewer mate-
rial things in common.

Another question which might fairly be asked is whether the
impressions that the American people have gained through the
organizations herein discussed have been objective and fair. There
are those who dislike the Chinese, and maintain that the organiza-
tions which have helped to create pro-Chinese feeling in the
United States have done so at the cost of honesty.

It may be several years before it will be possible to make an ob-
jective study of our cultural relations with Japan. However, cer-
tain factors in Japanese- American relations stand-out. There has
been for years a rigid -control in Japan of most of the activities
of foreign agencies. Thus, the work of missionary and educa-
tional bodies in Japan has been much less free to develop without
hindrance than has been the case, for example, in China. It has
been said that whereas returned missionaries from China fre-
quently spend their time propagandizing for the Chinese,
returned missionaries from Japan often spend their time apologiz-

130

ing for the Japanese. This situation holds true for most objective
observers, regardless of their affiliations.

Japanese propaganda in the United States has been largely of
an official nature designed to make Americans see the Japanese
people as the Japanese government wished them to be seen. Thus
the Japan Society for years carried on a successful campaign for
the propagation of Japan’s cultural gospel. This campaign em-
phasized Japanese art, the tea ceremony, flower arrangements,
Japanese gardens, and the other genuinely fine aspects of a highly
complex society. This propaganda was an effective smoke screen
which did much to obscure the dangerous elements of Japanese
civilization. The essential lawlessness of the Samurai spirit was
carefully hidden. The poverty of the masses in Japan, the or-
ganized prostitution of the Yoshiwara districts, the struggle for
power between the various military cliques, the gradual elimina-
tion of all visible vestiges of liberalism, the flagrant violation of
international obligations, all these things were carefully camou-
flaged. Every effort was made to direct our attention towards
pleasanter matters.

The Japanese government circulated large quantities of ex-
quisitely designed and printed booklets extolling the glories, beau-
ties, and superiorities of Japan. Choosing at random, we note the
following titles: Tea Cult of Japan ; What is Shinto ?; Floral Art
of Japan ; Castles in Japan ; Japanese Noh Plays ; Japanese Food;
Japanese Music; Kimono: Japanese Dress; Japanese Industrial
Arts; History of Japan . There were many others, all uniting to
give a highly colored picture of a Never-Never Land.

The conducted tours of American educators, business men, and
community leaders were another part of the same program. These
good Americans paid very little and had a splendid holiday. Many
of them were awarded free transportation in the laudable name
of fostering mutual understanding. They saw only what they
were supposed to see, and it was only the wiser ones who realized
what was happening, who could penetrate the veneer and see
the reality.

It appears in retrospect that in the years preceding Pearl Har-
bor, Japan carried on one of the most ambitious and intense pro-
grams of “cultural” propaganda in America ever attempted. As
a result, a good deal of genuine knowledge of certain choice as-

131

pects of Japanese life was acquired by a substantial number of
Americans. Of more immediate concern to the militarists who
ruled Japan was the fact that many Americans were greatly be-
fuddled. They could not believe much evil of Japan, and were
unwilling that Washington should disturb our “historic friend-
ship” in any way. This hampered military preparations by Amer-
ica and strengthened a state of mind which ma.de it easy for Japan
to trap us at Pearl Harbor.

The most sinister aspect of Japan’s “cultural” program in
America was her purchasing of the tongues and pens of several
American writers and speakers. This problem as a whole cannot
as yet be seen in proper perspective. Yet it is shocking to know
that a leading American periodical with a long and honorable
tradition could be bought and controlled by American citizens
acting for Japan, and that a former member of the American
Consular Service could be indicted as a Japanese agent.

It is too early to draw conclusions from Japanese- American
cultural relations, yet we venture to suggest that cultural ties
created and maintained by governments will almost inevitably be
governed by ulterior motives. Genuine understanding is more
likely to be a product of spontaneous and unhampered private
contacts.

Our friendship with China, and the more accurate of our ideas
concerning the Chinese people, are based on our past contacts
through Americans who have traveled or lived in China. These
have included business men, casual travelers, members of the
diplomatic, consular, and armed services, missionaries, scholars,
and writers. Of them all, the missionaries have become the prin-
cipal spokesmen for China, and have succeeded in passing on
their conception of the Chinese to the American people. They
constitute a tie which binds together in friendship the Chinese
and American peoples.

The American missionary in China has generally enjoyed far
better opportunities to understand the Chinese people than have
his fellow Americans in other fields of endeavor, since he has been
motivated mainly by a desire to serve the Chinese. This attitude
has been, in the minds of the people, a marked contrast to that of

132

the average foreigner in China. The business man, the diplomat,
and the consul, have frequently been connected with imperialistic
enterprises. The Chinese have therefore often trusted Christian
missionaries, while looking upon other foreigners’ agents gener-
ally with cold suspicion.

Missionaries have generally made it a point to master the Chi-
nese language, and to become acquainted with native customs.
While this has been done with an ulterior motive, in order to en-
able the missionary better to present his cause, it has usually re-
sulted in geniune sympathy and understanding, and has made the
missionary an earnest friend of the Chinese people. The thousands
of American children of missionaries who have been born and
reared in the heart of China, have been bilingual from the begin-
ning, speaking Chinese and English with equal facility. On their
return to the land of their fathers, most of them have become
energetic propagandists for China.

There have been many Americans in business and official cir-
cles in China who also have become familiar with Chinese lan-
guages and customs. But what has been called the Shanghai Mind
was long an unpleasant reality. This mentality was distinguished
by varying degrees of contempt for everything Chinese. Too
many Americans in China insulated themselves as far as possible
against contacts with the Chinese. They had their clubs and their
cliques, and proudly assumed the White Man’s Burden of su-
periority.

Missionaries are, of course, not the only Americans who have
befriended China. Many business men have been equally loyal,
and sometimes more objective in their friendship. There are
Americans who hold positions of great importance in our diplo-
matic services, and in the army and navy, who learned during
their official residence in China not only to speak the language
fluently, but to hold the people in great esteem.

Yet as a whole the missionaries have been the middlemen of
friendship between China and America. They have created an
enormous amount of good will for America in China; and in
America, they have acted as impassioned partisans of China. They
have exerted considerable influence not only on American public
opinion through their churches, but also on the State Department.
Whereas the American Missionary Movement started out ex-

133

clusively to convert the heathen in China, it has become one of
the most effective unofficial programs of inter-cultural education
the world has known, and has laid the foundation not only for
military collaboration between America and China, but for co-
operation in creating a just, new order in Asia.

During the last seventy-five years the Protestants have far out-
numbered Catholic missionaries in China, who had gained sub-
stantial numbers of converts in China as early as the fourteenth
century. Furthermore, the Protestant enterprises have been domi-
nated by Anglo-Saxons. Since 1900, Americans have outnumbered
their British colleagues, and at times there have been as many as
5,000 Protestant American missionaries in China.

During the twentieth century American Catholics have gone
to China in ever-increasing numbers. However, they are still rel-
atively few compared to the Protestants, and they have in no way
approached the latter as spokesmen in the Anglo-Saxon world for
the Chinese people. „

Compared to the Catholics, the Protestants have been late-
comers. The result has been that of the approximately 4,000,000
Christians in China, at least three-fourths are Catholic. However,
the Protestant influence in China is exceedingly strong, quite out
of proportion to the membership of the various Protestant de-
nominations. This is largely a result of the type of personnel sent
to China by the Protestant churches. There has been a large per-
centage of university-trained men and women. To paraphrase
Kenneth Latourette in his history of the Christian missionary
movement, the flower of Protestantism has labored, and is still
laboring, in China. These men and women have emphasized edu-
cation and social service. They have concentrated on producing
leaders, and have been successful in achieving a dominant posi-
tion in many phases of the life of contemporary China.

Protestant missions were unknown in China until 1807. In that
year Samuel Morrison arrived in Canton. He translated the Bible,
wrote many pamphlets in Chinese, and endeavored to lay the
foundation during his life for the study of Eastern languages in
Britain. He did much to make possible the rapid expansion of
Protestant missions in China during the latter half of the nine-
teenth century.

The contribution of the missionaries both to China and to their

134

native lands may be best indicated by brief stories of individuals
and their accomplishments. The first American missionary to
China was Elijah C. Bridgeman. He went to China in 1830 as a
guest of a New England merchant in Canton by the name of Oly-
phant, a gentleman who was so noted for his piety that his office
was known to other foreign merchants as “Zion’s Comer.”

It is noteworthy that two years after Bridgeman’s arrival he
launched a magazine entitled the Chinese Repository , which was
published in China from 1832 through 1851. In the words of its
founder, this magazine was intended to spread among foreigners
“information concerning laws, customs, history, literature, and
current events in the Empire.” Thus, the first American mission-
ary to the Chinese people within two years of his arrival in China
decided that one of his principal functions should be to combat
ignorance and prejudice among his own people. The Chinese Re-
pository is an invaluable mine of information, and is also a symbol
of the accomplishments of the Protestant missionaries in educat-
ing the Anglo-Saxon world to understand and appreciate the
Chinese.

In 1833, Bridgeman was joined by S. Wells Williams, a printer,
who was sent to China by the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions to develop a modern press which would
spread the Christian gospel. Williams became one of the greatest
foreign spokesmen for China. His books. The Middle Kingdom
and the History of China , were for many years the best works of
their type.

The American missionaries were not, however, the first to
write in English on behalf of the Chinese. As early as 1818 an
Anglo-Chinese College was established for the purpose of facili-
tating cultural interchange. This missionary institution was
founded at Malacca, in the Indies, but was moved to Hongkong
in 1843. It was originally intended that the College would en-
roll six European and six Chinese students, who would be trained
to act as intermediaries between China and Europe. Those who
lightly accuse the missionaries of intolerance would do well to in-
vestigate their purposes and accomplishments, even in the earliest
days.

Among the thousands of Americans and British missionaries
who have served China it is here possible to mention only a few.

135

James Legge, who arrived in the Far East in 1840, became one of
the greatest sinologists, and was in his later years professor of
Chinese at Oxford. Among his works are: The Chinese Classics
(7 volumes); The Religions of China; Confucianism; and many
others. Alexander Wylie, another Englishman, arrived in China
in 1847, and contributed much to the interpretation of the Chi-
nese people. Towards this end he learned French, Russian, Ger-
man, Manchu, and Mongol, in addition to Chinese. He wrote
voluminously on religion, literature, and science, and is credited
with certain valuable translations.

An outstanding pioneer American was Justus Doolittle, who
arrived in Foochow in 1857. In addition to being a successful mis-
sionary, he wrote a valuable book entitled The Social Life of the
Chinese , which is still worthy of attention. An American Presby-
terian, W. A. P. Martin, who arrived in China during 1850, wrote
the popular A Cycle of Cathay . He was so loyal to the Chinese
that the imperial government made him head of the first modern
Chinese institution of higher learning, the T’ung Wen College
in Peiping. The name of this college may be translated as mutual
(or joint) culture (or learning), which indicates its purpose.

Many other missionaries made major contributions to the in-
terpretation of the Chinese to Europe and America. E. T. Wil-
liams, an American from the Middle West, was a missionary who
became an author, resigned from his mission to serve in the Amer-
ican diplomatic service, and eventually became the head of the
Department of Oriental Languages and Literature at the Univer-
sity of California. Special mention should be given to Arthur
Smith, who wrote several standard books on the Chinese, and
exercised considerable influence on President Theodore Roose-
velt, with the result that America returned the Boxer Indemnity
to subsidize higher education for the young men of China. Dr.
Smith was warmly seconded by Bishop James W. Bashford, au-
thor of Chinay an Interpretation , who was a missionary statesman
of the first rank.

The use of the Boxer Indemnity to educate young Chinese was
a master stroke in diplomacy, and did much to cement Sino-
American friendship. Tsing-hua University still exists as a vindi-
cation of American policies in the Orient. The young Chinese

136

who received their higher education through the Boxer Fund
have done much to promote Sino-American friendship.

Missionaries have likewise made contributions of the greatest
importance in the field of linguistics. A large number of Chinese
language texts and dictionaries were prepared by missionaries,
among whom were Bailer, Mclver, MacGillivray, Goodrich,
Douglas, Chalmers, and Fenn.

Christian missions in China have long emphasized education
and medicine in addition to evangelism. Hundreds of schools and
hospitals were established in many parts of China. These institu-
tions required for their operation a large number of specialists in
medicine, in the sciences, and in other departments of learning.
While they were contributing their services to the Chinese, many
of them also learned from the Chinese, and made available to the
European world the results of their investigations.

While most of the foreigners in China lived in the cities, a large
proportion of the missionaries, including specialists, lived in re-
mote sections, and traveled through almost every part of the
country. The result was that they became the explorers and pio-
neers, and their reports formed the basis for much of our knowl-
edge of China. Typical of this aspect of their interest in China
is the West China Border Research Society, which was founded
in Chengtu during the early years of this century with the pur-
pose of exploring the Tibetan borderland, and making available
to Europe and America information concerning one of the least
known populated areas on earth. This organization consists pri-
marily of members of the various missions operating along the
Tibetan border. Such men as James Edgar have for many years
been exploring the Tibetan mountains, and the reports which he
and his associates have made constitute a large part of the existing
information on this frontier region.

Among the first western scientists in China were missionaries
and men of missionary background. For example, Harry R. Cald-
well wrote South China Birds , a standard work, and also has con-
tributed monographs in entomology and other fields of natural
history. Claude Kellogg, of Fukien Christian University, and Burl
Slocum, of the University of Nanking, among other missionaries,
have contributed to our knowledge of Chinese entomology. Frank-
lin D. Metcalf, who taught at Lingnan University, did distin-

137

guished work in botany. Dr. R. Gordon Agnew spent many
summers in Eastern Tibet studying the relation between diet and
the decay of teeth. The area he chose was ideal, because he found
a great range in altitude and an equal variation in diets. His dis-
coveries constitute a major contribution to the science of oral
hygiene. The American parent who gives his child vitamins to
control the development of his teeth owes a personal debt to
Dr. Agnew.

One reason for the prominence which has been attained by the
missionaries in the sciences in China is the development of Prot-
estant Christian colleges and universities. Some of these institu-
tions have been in existence for seventy-five years. They have
brought to China hundreds of highly trained specialists who have
done much not only to develop their fields in China, but to ad-
vance the cause of science in general. They play a major role
in the intellectual life of modern China.

The following is a list of the Protestant Colleges in China:

Enrollment

Institution

Estab .

1941-1942

1943-1944

Fukien Christian University

1915

4°3

463

Ginling College

1915

210

280

Hangchow Christian College

1897

9*9

228

Hua Chung College

1924

148

*5*

Hwa Nan College

1908

Lingnan University

1 893

800

574

Nanking, University of

1 88*8

793

1,099

St. John’s University

1879

1, 420

2,000

Shanghai, University of

1906

870

C*~\

Shantung Christian University

1864

468

46I

Soochow University

1900

1,318

320

West China Union University

1910

763

1,149

Yenching University

1870

1,156

380

Totals

9.34°

7>5°3

In the autumn of 1941 there

were

1 1 5 institutions

of higher

learning of all types in China, as compared with 108 in 1937. The
largest prewar enrollment was 41,922, as compared to more than
45,000 after four years of war, a figure that is reported to have

138

reached 50,000 in the autumn of 1942. In 1937 the “American”
colleges enrolled 15.3 per cent of all college students in China;
this proportion had climbed to better than 20 per cent by the
time Japan started the Pacific war.

The Christian Colleges have earned their present status in
China by preserving sound intellectual standards, and by devot-
ing their energies to serving the best interests of the Chinese peo-
ple. There are approximately 11,000 living graduates of these
colleges. An investigation of the latest Chinese Who's Who re-
veals that about one half of all the college graduates therein listed
were graduated from the thirteen Christian Colleges. The Chung-
king Government contains a large percentage of these men and
women. Since 1928 relations between the Government and the
Christian Colleges have been increasingly cordial.

These colleges represent an investment in American funds of
nearly $20,000,000. In the years 1943-44 they will receive for their
support over $2,000,000 from the United States, in addition to
substantial sums from British, Canadian, and Chinese sources. The
Christian Colleges in China are a co-operative enterprise involv-
ing four nations, and have been one of the principal media for cul-
tural interchange between China and the West. It is estimated
that there are 800 men and women now living in the United
States who at one time or another were connected with the col-
leges in China. These people as a group are highly educated and
articulate. They have individually occupied many positions of
prominence in the United States, and frequently have become un-
official envoys to America for China.

Most of the cultivation of popular interest in China by the
missionaries has been indirect, but there has also been a vast
amount of direct information disseminated through the churches.
In order to maintain interest in the missions of China, the church
boards have found it necessary to keep a large number of returned
missionaries busy lecturing, and to distribute large amounts of
literature. Examples of this publicity may be seen in the releases
of the various mission boards, which range from reprints of per-
sonal letters received from missionaries to expensive brochures.
The Associated Boards for Christian Colleges in China, which
administers the endowments and obtains new funds for the work
of the China Colleges, issues a quarterly bulletin with a circula-

*39

tion of more than thirty thousand, together with numerous book-
lets descriptive of the Christian Colleges. The Board of the
Methodist Church distributes as many as a million copies of a
single item in its publicity program. Lastly, many missionaries
have extensive personal mailing-lists. In one instance, 1,500 men
and women regularly receive reports from their missionary in
China. Thus the churches and the institutions they have spon-
sored have built in America a vast good will for China, and an
active interest in her affairs.

Some of the missionary publicity has been of a high order.
The Missionary Education Movement, an interdenominational
organization, has presented a reasonably objective picture of life
in foreign lands, and has done a great deal to educate the Ameri-
can people. Such recent pamphlets as The Amazing Chinese , by
Willis Lamott (1940), and China Rediscovers Her West , a sym-
posium (1940), have a genuine educational significance.

To examine any comprehensive list of books on the Orient is
to be impressed by the number of people who have written of
their adventures in strange lands, and have endeavored to inter-
pret the peoples of these lands. It is difficult to assess these con-
tributions to inter-cultural understanding. Much that has been
written is deplorably bad, yet in these veins there is considerable
gold. Such excellent books as those of Pearl Buck have assumed
substantial sociological significance because of their great and
deserved popularity. Doubtless thousands of Americans have dis-
covered for themselves through reading The Good Earth that the
Chinese are human beings. But space does not permit an evalua-
tion of the influence of popular books. This survey must limit
itself primarily to organizations and institutions of sociological
importance.

The American Council of Learned Societies issued in 1942 a
Directory of Organizations in America Concerned voith China.
The booklet lists some 105 organizations of various types. Many
are primarily concerned with enterprises in China, but they also
influence American opinion by their activities in this country.
Other groups and institutions are frankly interested in interpret-

140

ing China to America. The China organizations as a whole have
exerted a major influence on public opinion in the United States.

It is interesting to note that 45 of the 105 organizations listed
are definitely connected with Christian groups. In many other
organizations there is a strong indirect church influence. This is
natural because such a large proportion of American residents in
China have been missionaries. The significant fact is that a large
majority of the men and women, of all types and opinions, who
return to the United States after sojourning in China become
partisans for the Chinese people. Former residents of China tend
to band themselves together to work for China. This loyalty of
“Old China Hands” to China is a psychological phenomenon
which not only is unique, but has become an important political
and military factor.

It is also notable that important financial organizations have
shown for many years an interest in the welfare of the Chinese
nation. In this connection, the Rockefeller Foundation and its
affiliates have done much for China. The great Peiping Union
Medical College, one of the largest and most creative institutions
of its type in existence, is a Rockefeller gift to the Chinese people.
Since 1928 the China Medical Board, supported by Rockefeller
endowments and grants, has been devoted to supporting the Med-
ical College in Peiping.

The Rockefeller Foundation also is contributing directly to
the support of other worthy enterprises in China. The Founda-
tion has fostered the development of rural reconstruction, mass
education, public health, scientific agriculture, and various
branches of higher education. It also grants subsidies to a num-
ber of Chinese universities, and has played a major role in devel-
oping the science departments in several of the Christian Colleges
in China.

The American Rockefeller Foundation has assisted several col-
leges and universities to develop Far Eastern studies. The Founda-
tion has helped the American Council of Learned Societies to
support seminars on Far Eastern studies, and has granted subsi-
dies to the Institute of Pacific Relations. Space is lacking to list
all the constructive benefactions of the Rockefeller Foundation
in the field of Sino-American relations. Certainly it is one of the

141

strongest ties binding together China and America, and its activi-
ties are also important in other Asiatic countries.

The estate of Charles M. Hall, who developed a successful
process for the extraction of aluminum from its ores, has been
another important factor in American relations with Asiatic coun-
tries. The estate invested a total of $13,963,688 in colleges and
schools in Japan, China, India, the Near East, and the Balkans.
The Harvard- Yenching Institute was endowed by the estate with
$6,354,788. The Institute promotes Chinese cultural studies in
China and the United States, and is affiliated with the following
universities in China: Yenching, Fukien Christian, Nanking,
Shantung Christian, Lingnan, and West China Union. The work
of the Institute in America centers at Harvard, where it has cre-
ated a magnificent library of Chinese and Japanese books. In-
struction is provided on both undergraduate and graduate levels.

The American Oriental Society is another important bond be-
tween East and West. It was founded in China by American
scholars in 1842. During the past century its scope and its mem-
bership both have grown. Now there are 843 members, devoted to
“the cultivation of learning in Asiatic, African, and Polynesian
languages and cultures and the publication of books and papers
on these subjects.” The light of this society was long obscured
by the bushel of public indifference. The recent growing interest
in Oriental languages and culture should make it possible for the
society to fulfill the aims of its founders, who one hundred years
ago expressed the hope that the American Oriental Society would
serve as a bridge between the cultures of the East and the West.

The Institute of Pacific Relations is an international organiza-
tion with national councils in Australia, China, Canada, Great
Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, the
United States, and the Philippines. The membership of the Ameri-
can Council is more than 1,200; headquarters are in New York.
The activities of the IPR are manifold, including the promotion
of meetings, the publication of pamphlets, periodicals, and books,
the production of radio programs, and subsidies for research. The
American Council has been increasingly active in the interpreta-
tion of the Orient to America.

The American Council of Learned Societies has done much to
foster the development of sound scholarship in Oriental subjects.

142

This organization was founded in 1919 “to co-ordinate and ad-
vance humanistic sciences in America’'; its membership consists
of twenty-one learned societies. Through its Committee on Chi-
nese Studies the Council has exerted a formative influence on
sinology in America, and through other committees, on the de-
velopment of Indie, Arabic, and other Oriental studies. The
Council sponsors research projects, and has published a number
of important works.

The average American is only indirectly influenced by the
activities of learned societies. His principal contacts with China
have been through church organizations, and through the activi-
ties of charitable enterprises. In the Directory of Organizations in
America Concerned with China there are listed fourteen oganiza-
tions, such as United China Relief, interested in the relief of
China’s wartime needs, and many others, such as the Associated
Boards for Christian Colleges in China, which participate in relief
enterprises while carrying on their regular activities.

The East and West Association is a newcomer, founded as re-
cently as 1942. Neither a relief organization nor scholarly in its
approach, not committed to any faith or creed, and nonpolitical,
it seeks an unsentimental approach to an understanding between
peoples. Its methods are fluid, suited to the community in which
it works, and therefore its avenues are many and varied. It pre-
sents series of lectures in cities, in co-operation with a committee
representing the city’s own educational, church, labor, minority,
and other groups. It furnishes to colleges, men’s and women’s
clubs, and other organizations authoritative speakers and enter-
tainers, for the most part people from the countries of the Near,
Middle, and Far East. It supplies to museums, schools, libraries,
and other centers visual and auditory aids for teaching about other
peoples. It works with groups of its own members in forming
social and co-operative study groups so that people of varied
backgrounds can meet and share their cultures on a basis of every-
day living. The emphasis of the entire East and West program is
on the human level; of coming to know people and their problems
through their modern culture patterns as well as through their
historical and political backgrounds.

China in modern times has been a land of calamities, and every
great natural or man-made cataclysm has aroused a response in

*43

America. Organizations have come and gone, and each has made
its contribution both to the American and the Chinese people.
In soliciting funds from the former for the latter, the giver has
been educated to understand the needs of the receiver. The re-
ceiver, in turn, has been taught to regard America as a land of
plenty and of good will, and to consider the Americans as friends.
Some of the relief organizations, such as the American Association
for China Famine and Flood Relief, have made important con-
tributions to the education of America.

VII

In conclusion, then, as historical facts clearly demonstrate,
there is full reason for Americans to feel that they have definite
connections, more firmly established than many are aware, with
the Eastern world. There is full reason, nevertheless, for an effort
to strengthen those bonds yet more. The East will inevitably
play a role of increasing importance in the future affairs of the
world. It is not too early for Westerners to comprehend its grow-
ing power, and it would be well for them to cultivate their knowl-
edge of it from the Far, through the Middle, to the Near.
Whether they meet head on in violent opposition, or peacefully
as understanding friends, will depend, for our part, on how con-
scientiously we seek to know and appreciate, as individuals with
qualities of culture and character to be respected, the inhabitants
of these Asian lands. It is the part of wisdom for us to open up
all possible channels for the interflow of mutual understanding,
thus strengthening and increasing in number and effectiveness
the many “ties that bind.”

144

John Gould Fletcher

THE ORIENT AND CONTEMPORY
POETRY

THE diffusion of literature, or— to describe the process
more accurately and closely— the way in which a literature has
been able to renew itself and to alter its direction by means of
contact with some form of literary expression practised in an-
other part of the planet, is a fascinating subject. Those who are
unfamiliar with world literature are likely to suppose that the
masterpieces in this field are the product of great minds, who,
through their work, cover great areas of human experience,
guided by nothing better than their “inspiration.” The more
eager and persistent student will, sooner or later, come to the
deeper problem of why certain literary forms came into being,
as well as the question of why certain languages guided them to
this achievement— and, allied to this, he will inevitably discover
that the attempt on the part of certain literary creators to trans-
pose a given form of literature from one language into another
has frequently been responsible for new literary awakenings in
lands remote from the birth of the original form.

It is with such a group of literary creators that this essay will
mainly deal; a group which originated in England, had its adher-
ents in both England and America, and was known by the ex-
pressive name they gave themselves, as the Imagists. Professor
Glenn Hughes, in the only complete history written of this lit-
erary group ( Imagism and the Imagists , Stanford University
Press, 1931) has stated, correctly, that the Imagist movement be-
gan with a meeting of a few people interested in the writing of

145

poetry, at a restaurant in London, in the early spring of 1909.
Present at the first meeting were T. E. Hulme, F. S. Flint, Ed-
ward Storer, F. W. Tancred, Joseph Campbell, and Florence Farr
—the last two being recent arrivals from Ireland. The group were
highly dissatisfied with the way that poetry in English was be-
ing written, and were determined to do something to improve
the general quality of contemporary poetry. Hulme, their un-
questioned leader, was a man whose interests were equally philo-
sophic and literary; he had done much independent study in both
French and German philosophy and literature, and had undoubt-
edly read the French Symbolist poets, with their dislike of Victor
Hugo’s verbosity, to great advantage. Flint, who had carefully
taught himself to read and write French, was his able second; he
was much interested in the new French vers-libre forms.

Within a month of its formation, the group was joined by Ezra
Pound, the first American present, who had just published his
first book in London, under the title of Personae . As Flint and
other chroniclers have accurately stated, up to that time Pound’s
poetry had been mainly influenced by the Provengal trouba-
dours, by the early Italian poets of Dante’s circle, by Rossetti and
William Morris, Robert Browning and the early Yeats. With his
restless desire, natural to an imaginative American expatriate, to
conquer new poetic territory, and his flair for discovering new
poetic talent, Pound felt at once at home with this group. His
mind was intrigued with their ‘doctrine of the image’: a theory
whereby the production of poetry was made dependent on the
production of new and concrete images in words. Hulme, whose
philosophic position in regard to the writing of poetry was al-
ready fully worked out, and who was prepared to insist upon
such clarity of statement as made his pupils see “each word with
an image sticking on to it, never as a flat word passed over the
board as a counter” was prepared to demonstrate the ‘doctrine
of the image’ by means of examples worked out on a blackboard.
He was in full reaction against Victor Hugo, Swinburne, and the
other romantic poets who were “always flying, flying over
abysses, flying up into the eternal gases.” He wanted poetry to
return to the hard, the definite, the precise, the dry; he demanded
a poetry that would present a continuous working up of pictorial
analogies between the real world and the world of the imagina-

146

tion. Poetry to him was not inherent in any given metrical form,
and for that reason he was disposed to favor the recent French
experiments in vers litres; it was inherent in the power of meta-
phorical expression, which alone could create appropriate images;
and for that reason, he favored the shorter poem over the long.

The group, as»Flint later stated, “died a lingering death at the
end of its second winter”; but before that event occurred, two
important incidents in relation to it had happened. In the first
place, the American poetess, Hilda Doolittle, whom Pound had
known back in his early American days, and who was trying to
restore to English poetry something of the metric freedom, as
well as the poetic vividness, of early Greek lyric poetry, decided
—following a brief visit by Pound himself back to America in the
winter of 1909-10— to come over and settle in London. She then
met the members of the group, and was acclaimed by them, as a
perfect example of Imagism— although she made no attempt, as
they did, to write on modern subjects. In the second place, the
author of this essay, in the same spring of 1910, had himself met
Hulme in an editor’s office in London. Hulme had fished out of
me that I was interested in the writing of poetry, and he promptly
invited me to take part in the meetings and discussions of the
group. My painful shyness— of which I was acutely conscious— as
well as the effort I was then making on my own account, to
write poetry according to models provided by the early French
Symbolists, forbade my responding to Hulme’s invitation. And
so my efforts were to continue, single-handed, along somewhat
parallel lines, until the day in late May of 1913, when— with my
series of Irradiations worked out and complete— I was destined to
meet Ezra Pound in Paris.

The reader may well ask, at this point, “Just what has all this
to do with Oriental poetry and its influence upon contemporary
English and American poetry?” The answer is, that it has a great
deal, as anyone will see who reads further in this essay. None of
these early theorists of the image had, one presumes, read much
Oriental poetry, either in the original or in translation. Goethe’s
W est-Oestlicher Divoan , as well as Edward Fitzgerald, and
Wilfred Scawen Blunt’s adaptation from the Arabic— which
Pound admired— were no doubt, familiar territory; but the at-
tempt made by James Elroy Flecker to follow Persian models, as

147

well as the Ghitanjali poems of Tagore, which may themselves
owe something to the Chinese, and which were enthusiastically
hailed by Yeats in the early months of 1913, lay still in the fu-
ture. On the other hand, we have Flint’s word for it that the
group was much attracted, from the first, by Japanese tanka and
hokku forms (presumably someone among them had read Laf-
cadio Hearn or Basil Hall Chamberlain); and as Flint added, “we
all wrote dozens of the latter, an amusement.” The obvious con-
clusion is, that something in the conciseness of Japanese poetry,
as well as its pictorial quality, early attracted the Imagist group.

We who are aware of the immense cultural debt long since
owed by Japanese literature and art to the Chinese, are also
aware of how little effect these Japanese forms— which have
acted on Japanese poetry as a deterrent rather than as a factor
favoring full development— can have had upon developing the
Imagist group in the direction of a better understanding of Ori-
ental poetry. They might as well have tried to write poems mod-
eled upon the Persian ghazel—as the Georgian poet James Elroy
Flecker, actually did a little later— as to have confined their at-
tention solely to the tanka and the hokku , except for amusement,
as Flint says. Whether they were aware or not that a great body
of poetry existed in the Chinese language that was very highly
Imagistic in its essential qualities, I do not know; but the fact
remains that Flint, in his own early account of the genesis of
Imagism, makes no reference to Chinese poetry, which would
encourage a negative conclusion. However, I myself, though
not then a member of the group, was becoming increasingly
aware of the importance of Chinese poetry; I make no apology,
therefore, for interposing at this point a purely personal narra-
tive.

Sometime about the year 1910, 1 first became aware of the fact
that the Chinese people had known a great literary flowering,
and had enjoyed great writers of their own. I do not know how
this intimation was first brought to me; I know only that I had
been familiar with some of the great products of Chinese pictorial
and sculptural art since the days when I, as an undergraduate at
Harvard, had first walked into the Oriental Wing of the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, and had looked at the treasures magnifi-
cently displayed there. It was during the same early period of

148

my studentship at Harvard (1902-1907) that I avidly read
through the writings of Lafcadio Hearn; first as a translator of
certain French authors— Gautier and Flaubert— whom I had come
to admire, and secondly, as an interpreter of Japan. I did not real-
ize at that time that Hearn, great prose writer as he was, was quite
unaware, from the outset, of the immense spiritual and cultural
debt which Japan had owed to China; and since he was handi-
capped, as a man, by the myopia which enabled him to see only
the objects nearest at hand, he had necessarily refined upon and
exaggerated the contributions that the older culture of Japan (al-
ready passing away while he wrote about it) had to make to man-
kind. What he said concerning a people whose lives were
regulated by Spartan self-discipline, but who had continued to
make an art out of the minute and the subtle, excited me by con-
trast with the raucous, bustling America I knew, but it actually
influenced me very little at the time. After all, as an eager young
student, I wanted a culture which was somewhat broader, which
responded more completely to the flowing and diverse interests
which underlay mankind.

This broadly human element I finally discovered in the Chi-
nese; but I did not become acquainted with them as a people with
a literature of their own, till around 1910, when I had already
settled in London. Just what book first introduced me to them,
I do not know; but I suspect it was Herbert A. Giles’ A History
of Chinese Literature , published in 1901— a book which I still pos-
sess and still find worth reading. This led me to Giles’ predeces-
sor, James Legge, and to Confucius; but Legge’s more than
Scotch matter-of-factness, as well as his utter inability to appre-
ciate any poetical qualities in the Chinese written character, re-
pelled me. I received, at the same time, far more enlightenment
from the pages of Judith Gautier’s Le Livre de Jade , first pub-
lished in 1867, and revised early in the twentieth century. This I
found totally delightful; though Chinese scholars have told me it
is quite inexact. Cramner-Byngs’ A Lute of Jade, published in
1909, and consisting largely of rather romantically colored adap-
tations of Giles and some French or Latin translators, also
charmed me when it first appeared; but with the real pioneer ef-
fort in French, the Marquis d’Hervey-Saint-Denys’ Poesies de
VEpoque des Thang, a magnificent piece of scholarship published

149

in 1862, 1 was quite unfamiliar at the time, and did not see a copy
in fact until shown one by Ezra Pound, about a year after I came
to know him, early in the spring of 1914.

It is difficult for me to say just how deeply I was affected by
the first Chinese poems I thus read in European translation; I am
sure however, that although they gave only hints of the great
riches of Chinese literature, they acted on me as a revelation. In
common with all the advanced poetry writers of that period, I
was in full revolt from the Victorians, with the sole possible ex-
ception of Browning; it seemed to me that all the English poets,
from Shelley and Wordsworth onward, had tried too hard to
make poetry teach something, preach something, bear the ab-
stract connotation of a general moral lesson— when the real busi-
ness of poetry was to state, and state concretely, just what had
moved the poet, and to leave the reader to draw his own con-
clusions. True, the Pre-Raphaelites of the seventies, eighties and
nineties had tried to get away from too much * Victorian moraliz-
ing, but only William Morris, to whom poetry meant the return
to heroic mythology, had made much out of Pre-Raphaelitism;
and Morris had the advantage of long familiarity with old folk
beliefs behind him. The attempt that the Georgians were then
making, in the England where I lived, to revive the pure nature-
lyricism of the early Romantics by reliance chiefly on Blake,
rather than on Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth, seemed to me
rather artificial and forced; I recall that it was obvious to me that
few of the Georgians knew anything concerning French poetry,
just then concluding some fifty years of extraordinary devel-
opment under the Symbolists; and so they seemed merely
sentimental and naive, where the French poets were mature, pas-
sionate, and subtle. W. H. Davies’ poems were to me minor efforts
in a falsely pastoral convention; James Stephens was Irish, a
rougher and more erratic kind of Yeats; the early Masefield of
the Everlasting Mercy seemed merely a cheap flash in the pan;
W. W. Gibson was frankly dull; Brooke was clever, but just an-
other precocious playboy; James Elroy Flecker charming, but
rather too consciously exotic, in the manner of Leconte de Lisle
and his favorite Parnassians. The only Georgian that seemed to
me to matter was Ralph Hodgson, of all the Georgians the least
fecund in output, but the richest in intensity and charm. All of

150

them would, I felt, be better poets had they ever read this poem
turned into my own English from Judith Gautier’s French ver-
sion:—

“One day, through the foliage and the perfume of the flower-
ing trees, the wind carried to me the sound of a distant flute.

“I cut then a branch from a willow-tree, and fashioned of it a
flute, and responded with a song.

“Since then, at night, when all are sleeping, the birds have
heard a conversation conducted in their own language.”

This, with its hint that it is only through art that man can
aspire to rival nature, seemed to me to contain a lesson that the
Georgians would do well to learn. Also there was this, written by
the same poet, Li-Po, and found by me later on in Hervey-Saint-
Denys’ translation:—

Close to the city, enveloped in waves of yellow dust, the crows
assemble to pass the night.

They fly cawing, above the trees; they perch on the branches;
the males call after their mates.

The wife of the soldier, seated at her task, is weaving figured silk;
The crying of the crows comes to her, through the lattices pur-
pled by the last rays of sun.

She stops her shuttle. She thinks with discouragement on him she
awaits here for long;

She goes silently to her solitary cot, and her tears fall like sum-
mer rain.

Both of these poems— and many more like them— seemed to me
to point out the Chinese poets had used their imaginations to
identify themselves with the objects they wrote about. That
Li-Po had probably never actually cut for himself a flute, and
held conversation with the birds in their own language; that at
best he had only pictured the wife of a Chinese soldier in a city
besieged by Tartar cavalry, was of minor importance. He had
done what Wordsworth had failed to do: “to choose situations
and incidents from common life, and to relate or describe them
throughout, in a selection of language really used by men; and at
the same time, throw over them a certain coloring of the imagi-
nation, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind
in an unusual way; and further, and above all, to make these in-

*5*

cidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though
not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature.”

It was to this conclusion that I had been driven by my own in-
vestigations into such Chinese poets as I could find available in
either English or French translation, shortly after completing the
series of my Irradiations at the close of June in 1913. As I have
said publicly in another place than this essay, the Irradiations
themselves owed a great deal to French Symbolist poetry, nota-
bly to Verhaeren, Francis Jammes, and to a forgotten book— Les
Fetes quotidiennes by Guy Charles Cros. These poets had taught
me that the commonplace incidents of our lives— the vision of a
child asleep in a baby-carriage, the aspect of great carts piled
high with pots of flowers rumbling off by night to a city mar-
ket—were as valuable subjects for poetry as Tennyson’s “Locks-
ley Hall” or Hugo’s interminable efforts to match the godlike
sublimity of history. Small wonder, therefore, that when Ezra
Pound told me, sometime in the winter of 1913-1914, that he had
fallen heir to the notes left behind by the late Ernest Fenollosa,
who had died in September, 1908, and that these notes contained
the translations of several quite excellent and important Chinese
poems, I was invincibly curious. And sometime during that win-
ter-after I had already finished my own Sand and Spray; a Sea-
Symphony, the first of a series constructed according to a
pattern which was, strictly speaking, my own— Ezra Pound
showed me some of these translations, now grouped together in
his work under the title of Cathay .

To say that I realized that these poems, so far as I was con-
cerned, represented to me an enormous revolution in English
poetic technique, would be an understatement. I had already,
during the late summer of 1912, made some attempts at some-
thing similar, both as regards subject matter and technique. Let
me quote two of these, both taken from my Visions of the Eve-
ning, published in the spring of 1913:

We will sleep in the high-pillared pavilions of late summer
nights,

Watching the mists take vague and altering reflections
From the crimson lanterns, the towering tripods of flame
Set all around the hall, overflowing with golden lights.

*5*

We will slumber or we will drink, while the crimson-robed,
dark-eyed dance girls

Weave a few wayward paces ’mid the cups and flowers on the
floor. . . .

Let us sleep in the high-pillared pavilions of late summer nights.
Watching the moon’s blue breath on the mirror of the pond.

There were some other lines to this as first written, lines voic-
ing a somewhat Omar-Khayyamish mood in philosophy, but not
germane to the chief substance of the poem, which aimed to pre-
sent the image of a night spent camping in the American woods,
in an unfamiliar way. The other poem is even more explicit in
its direction:—

The lanterns dangle at the ends of long wires, the breeze bobs
them to and fro.

My soul is in love with that lazy lantern dance.

Oh how the autumn gusts through the dark gardens
Rattle them together, rending their crimson sides!

This, recalling a far-off garden party I had witnessed as an
extremely young man in Arkansas, was actually entitled in my
book, “From the Chinese.” In reality, its substance was no more
taken from any particular Chinese poem than was the substance
of certain other experiments in the same book, labeled “From the
Japanese,” actually taken from that language. I knew nothing of
either. What had happened was that I had somehow, as a poet,
guessed at the way the Orientals had constructed their poems.
The parallelism of construction, casting back and forth from the
observer to thing observed, is surely manifest: and the self-same
quality is omnipresent in Ezra Pound’s Cathay .

Unlike Pound, these experiments had beeh made without the
benefit of reference to Ernest Fenollosa’s literal translations. I
had, though, read carefully through his Epochs of Chinese and
Japanese Art , but without any explicit reference to my own
poetry. The general construction of the metric cadence in these
examples is, at least, remarkably similar to the Cathay poems. And
the point about the Cathay translations is this: that every suc-
ceeding Chinese translator, beginning with Arthur Waley, whose
first book appeared in 1918, has, with very few exceptions, es-

153

sentially followed the metric scheme set up by Pound. This form
—ignoring the “rhymes” and the “tones” of the Chinese originals—
directly follows the Chinese construction of the phrase and is
therefore the most nearly correct vehicle for translating Chinese
poetry we have.

It was only after I had read the Cathay translations— taken as
Pound said, “from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the
decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga”— that I threw
overboard my own scruples, which had forbidden me up to
then to take part in the Imagist movement, and proclaimed my-
self truly an Imagist. The Chinese influence and example seemed
to me to fortify the whole case for Imagism, which in H.D.’s
early poetry, as in that of Aldington, had depended too closely
and exclusively on Greek or Latin models. Greek art had already
offended me with its academic naturalism; the work of the early
Chinese artists, whether in painting or in sculpture, seemed to me
very much superior; could not something of the same sort be
said also against Greek poetry? Flint’s position, as a modern ex-
perimentalist taking off from the achievements of the French
Symbolists, was far more sympathetic. Indeed, there was at least
one poem by Flint that seemed to me rather Chinese, in its impli-
cations:—

On black, bare trees a stale cream moon
hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.

Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,
tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.

Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;
and round the bend six bullocks come.

A hobbling, dust-grimed drover guides

their clattering feet to death and shame.1

It was, then, thanks to the Chinese influence altogether that I
myself became an Imagist, with all that the term implied. And
when Miss Amy Lowell, in April, 1915, published the successor
to Pound’s Des Imagistes Anthology (which had appeared in the
spring of 1914) under the title of Some Imagist Poets , I was
proud and happy to take my place in its pages; for it seemed to
me that my own combination of French Symbolism and of Chi-
nese image-making had made of me as much an Imagist, as the

*54

influence of Greek poetry had made H.D., or the influence of
Latin poetry plus Flint, had made Aldington.

It is now clear that the Imagist group, as such, did not derive
its impetus primarily from Chinese sources. The initial push to
the movement had been given by T. E. Hulme, a speculative phi-
losopher and a critic rather than a poet; he had been ably abetted
in his initial purpose of getting rid of the vague rhetoric of Hugo
and Swinburne by F. S. Flint, who— like Hulme himself— had
dipped deeply into French Symbolism. Ezra Pound, who was
trying, even then, to alter the rich but rather over-mythological
early style of Yeats into something more vivid and direct, had
come and listened, and become convinced by Hulme’s demon-
strations; H.D., who had, with the help of many early Greek
lyrists, written herself back into a world which stood out in
complete contrast to the world of twentieth-century London,
had attended some of the meetings, and her earliest poems— duly
printed in Poetry of Chicago in January, 1913, and labelled
“Verses, Translations and Reflections from ‘The Anthology,’ ”
meaning of course, the Greek Anthology— had been agreed upon
by all as perfect examples of Imagism. Richard Aldington, as a
self-confident young man then just emerging on the career of
writer, had entered the group, to be strongly influenced by both
H.D. and Flint; I, too, had entered, rather belatedly, in the early
months of 1914, only after the first Imagist anthology had been
published. Miss Lowell had come to London in the summer of
1913, having— like most of us— previously read much French Sym-
bolist poetry; she had threatened to take charge of the movement
from the start; but had gone back to Boston, and was not ex-
pected to appear in London again till the summer of 1914. The
main sources of Imagist Poetry were still to be found in Greek,
Latin, French, and in Pound’s Proven£al; the Chinese influence,
if it existed, was only a vague something in the background; and
I cannot myself recall discussing Chinese poetry with any mem-
bers of the group except Pound and, somewhat later, Amy
Lowell.

But if French Symbolism be taken for the father of Imagism,

155

Chinese poetry was its foster-father. I have already pointed out
that, in my own case, it was Chinese poetry alone— in such trans-
lations as I could then find— that finally convinced me of the
validity of the new school. And Pound, by obtaining from Mary
Fenollosa her husband’s papers, sometime in 1913, had inevitably
taken the same direction. He now had in his possession, besides
the Cathay material, a long and extraordinary essay “The Chinese
Written Character as a Medium for Poetry”— an essay which he
jealously guarded as a most precious possession and allowed no
one to see for a long time, before giving it out to the public.

Fenollosa’s contention in that essay was that the Chinese lan-
guage was the most perfect poetic instrument to be found in the
world, because of its ideogrammatic constituents. It perfectly
combined the element of pictorialization and of temporal conti-
nuity. Fenollosa agreed that the primary act in the creation of
poetry was the forging of metaphor— Hulme had spoken of the
“continuous working up of analogies,” meaning precisely the
same thing. To a reader of Fenollosa’s essay, it almost seems that,
at times, the author of this remarkable document was ready to ar-
gue that the Chinese characters are in themselves metaphors:
“Poetic thought works by suggestion, crowding maximum mean-
ing into the single phrase, pregnant, charged, and luminous from
within. In Chinese character each word accumulated this sort of
energy in itself.”

This recalls somewhat the theory set out by Richard Wilhelm,
the great German sinologist, in whose work Doctor Carl Jung,
the Swiss psychologist, has become so interested: that the con-
tinuity of Chinese culture (despite all disasters) has been due to
the fact that the Chinese possessed an unbroken record of ideo-
graphic language. But it is easy to see in what direction Fenollosa
went much further; and how many pitfalls there were in his doc-
trine, when pushed to extremes by such an extremist as Ezra
Pound. For Pound, as the jealous guardian of Fenollosa’s legacy,
immediately leaped to the conclusion that the thing to do was
to reduce Imagism to further intensity, and to pack into every
word of his resultant poems all the pictorial overtones which
Fenollosa had previously found in Chinese characters.

Whether this new direction on his part was responsible for the
coolness that now sprang up between him and T. E. Hulme, I

1 56

cannot say; but in the spring of 1914, I was destined to hear a
great deal, through Pound, of a new art-movement he was start-
ing, to be called Vorticism. The new group consisted of Wynd-
ham Lewis, who was writer as well as artist; Edward Wadsworth,
a painter; Jacob Epstein, the well-known sculptor; Henri Gau-
dier-Brzeska, the young Franco-Polish sculptor whom Pound had
recently met and befriended; and Pound himself, along with one
or two others. Pound worked hard on me to get me to take an
interest in the movement, and even offered me a chance to lec-
ture to the public on my own theories of poetry. I had, however,
other concerns for the moment, and in July of that year, at the
same time that the new group got under way with their famous
little magazine Blast , which soon after vanished— thanks to the
more reverberant blast of the First World War— Miss Lowell did
return to London, prepared to push the Imagists further along by
bringing out, at her own expense, a series of annual anthologies.
She and Pound immediately quarreled over the editorship; with
the result that when the first of this series of anthologies came out
in the spring of 1915, it had no editor at all, and was deprived of
the services of Ezra Pound.

In saying this much, I am, however, already getting in advance
of my main story; which is, as far as I am able, to trace the im-
pact of Chinese poetry upon the consciousness of some modem
Western poets; which impact, I believe, took place at first ex-
clusively through the group known as the Imagists. My secon-
dary purpose is to trace the same impact through my own work.
I had already, at the close of January, 1914, written my “Blue
Symphony,” which was at first intended as an exercise in the pic-
torial manner of such Chinese poets as had already come my
way; and then— as I have already narrated in my Autobiography
—had, during the course of writing this poem, suddenly run
across, by accident, some of Hans Bethge’s German translations
of old Chinese poems, serving as a choral background to Gustav
Mahler’s orchestral symphony, Das Lied Von der Erde, then be-
ing given its first public performance in London. As I have else-
where stated, the effect of the discovery of these translations was
electric. “As I listened to them [the Bethge translations] it
seemed to me that the poem I was now writing was the same
poem that many of these old Chinese poets had already written.

157

My modern loneliness, exile, despair, fled across centuries of time
and thousands of miles of space and was joined to theirs.” This
rediscovery of the Chinese made me feel that my chief business
was to see to it that the direction taken in my “Blue Symphony”
was fully followed up; and accordingly, the whole series of my
“Symphonies” was then and there begun. To continue with them
was now my chief concern.

Pound, however, was certainly off on another tack. In the
spring of 1913, he had been strongly and emotionally moved by
the beauty of many faces seen in a city crowd as he descended
from his train at a station of the Paris Metro. He wrote a thirty-
line poem, according to his own account, about this; six months
later, he shortened it, adjudging it work of ‘second intensity’; a
year later, he made the following hokku- like sentence: —

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Flint was also doing much the same thing when he reduced
an earlier and much longer poem that had appeared in his first
book, into the sixteen-line lyric of his Cadences , well known
under the title of “The Swan.” I was doing something of the
same thing when I was condensing my personal emotions as de-
tailed in the “Blue Symphony” into what could be pictorially and
vividly stated in a whole series of Symphonies. But the effect of
Pound’s ‘one image poem,’ as he called it, was, as it was more
intense, more potent. It really compared favorably with such a
well-known Japanese hokku as the following:—

Fallen flower returning to the branch;

Behold! It is a butterfly.

The question of the relation of the Japanese tanka and hokku
poems to the Imagist movement, or to the older Chinese poems,
is a difficult question; and since I write, not as a professional
sinologue, but as a poet who happens to have derived much from
reading translations of both Chinese and Japanese poetry, it is
one that cannot be fully resolved here. My feeling at the time
was that the direction taken by this poem— which was put forth
by Pound himself as a pure example of what he meant by Vorti-
cism, was largely wrong. Pound has said, in relation to it: “the

158

image is not an idea. It is a radiant node or cluster; it is what I
can, and must perforce call, a vortex; from which and through
which and into which ideas are constantly rushing. It is as true
for the painting and the sculpture as it is for the poetry.” In other
words what was produced here was as close an approximation to
an ideographic poem as the English language could bear. Pound
had not read Fenollosa’s essay for nothing.

Nevertheless, the English language, for all that, remains non-
ideographic; and the relation of certain beautiful faces seen in a
Paris Metro station to petals on a wet tree branch is not abso-
lutely clear. Morever, the relation of the Chinese classical poets
to the Japanese tanka and hokku poets is, psychologically speak-
ing, like the relation of full-grown and mature human figures
to a group of rather small and temporarily attractive children.
The tanka or the hokku poem is nothing more than a sketch; the
Chinese poem presents a full picture. Though many attempts
have been made to justify the limitations of Japanese poetry—
the best being in my opinion, the book on The Spirit of Japanese
Poetry by Yone Noguchi, whose poetry also had had, since 1912,
some effect on my own— yet the fact remains, that the more
Japanese poetry one reads the more one realizes that every Japa-
nese poet is forced, by the exigencies of the form, to resemble
every other Japanese poet. It is exactly as if every major English
poet had been compelled to write nothing but sonnets— or rather,
it is even worse. The Chinese poets, by contrast, are richly en-
dowed; they have in their possession a medium in which all their
important experiences can be fully displayed.

While I was writing the series of “Symphonies,” during 1914
and early 1915, I was content to abide by the Chinese influences
that had been absorbed in the translations I had found accessible;
and was prepared to resist Pound’s Vorticism, which seemed to
me to point in the direction of Japanese tanka and hokku poetry,
rather than towards the fullness of experience which I had al-
ready found in Li-Po, Wang- Wei, Tu Fu, and Po Ch‘u-1. Chi-
nese poetry was used by me as a crystallizing influence, an
achievement accomplished along parallel lines to modem Imag-
ism, which achievement helped to show Imagism the paths it
could fallow. It was also so used by Miss Amy Lowell, who—
after my return to American in the last months of 1914— became

159

my chief literary mentor, and my closest friend. There are many
of the shorter poems in her Sword Blades and Poppy Seedy pub-
lished in October, 1914, which betray that preoccupation with
the concrete occasion which is common to both Chinese poetry
and to Imagism. There are even vividly pictorial sonnets here,
like “The Temple,” and “A Tulip Garden,” which could not
have been what they were without some reference to Chinese
models in their author’s mind.

It occurs to me, at this stage to point out that such has always
been the way of poets. They obtain much from poetry written
in other languages, somewhat in the way that a hungry man is
prepared to taste an unfamiliar dish rather than go without food.
The same process goes on also in art and in music. Painters learn
from other painters, and musicians from other musicians. But
in the case of poetry, when certain technical devices native to
one language flow over into another one, all that can be
transmitted in the long run is, not a direct imitation, but a unify-
ing spirit. All the sinological expertness in the world could not
have directed the Imagists more clearly to the thing to be found
at the core of old Chinese poetry: the attitude of man to nature,
which was not that of the romantics, nor of the contemporary
Georgians, nor— as it proved— that of the more recent intellec-
tualist poets, but was Chinese, and I might even add, Taoistic.

It was only when the “Symphonies” were finished, during the
first three months of 1915, that I turned back along the lines al-
ready marked out by Pound’s Vorticism, and became again at-
tracted to the possibilities of Japanese, rather than Chinese poetry.
The poems then written under what might be called the tanka
influence, are the ones assembled under the general title “The
Ghosts of an Old House,” in my Goblins and Pagodas , published
in 1916, and those brought together in my Japanese Prints pub-
lished two years later. The specific occasion that prompted me
to pursue this path was the memorial exhibition of the Clarence
Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints, at the Art Institute
of Chicago, in January and February of 1915. As examples of an
art of the people, rather than an art produced for feudal and
artistocratic consumption, these ukiyo-e masterpieces £ specially
appealed to me, an American. In repeated visits to the Art Insti-

160

tute exhibit, I strove to give to many of them their poetic
equivalents.

Let me examine one of these equivalents, based on a print show-
ing a daimyo attempting to embrace a lady, who is resisting his
ardor:—

Force and yielding meet together;

An attack is half-repulsed.

Shafts of broken sunlight dissolving

Convolutions of turbid cloud.

The reader will immediately note that no attempt is made to
follow the Japanese tatika or hokkn pattern of syllables. All I
was interested in was all that Pound had been interested in, in
his Metro poem: to produce an objective equivalent in words, to
the object I saw. With the attempt, made at much the same time
by Adelaide Crapsey, to produce a metrical equivalent of the
tanka form in the so-called “Cinquain,” I was then unfamiliar. My
poem attempted to state the precise effect of the ukiyo-e artists’
vision, in abbreviated form.

The difficulty with a poetry such as this is that it confines its
creator to the fragmentary impression. The links between impres-
sion and impression, as well as the power to contrast one impres-
sion with another, are lost. What Fenollosa— mistakenly, as I feel
—girds against in his essay under the name of the ‘copula-
sensation,’ is lost. This applies particularly to my “Ghosts of an
Old House” poems. Fragments of what should have been a linked-
together experience are arbitrarily juxtaposed. The best of the
older Chinese poets have not shared this fault. One feels in them
a continuous power to move from experience to experience:
they do not adopt what Amy Lowell, reading these Japanese-
inspired experiments of mine, called “the unrelated method.”

The Japanese manner, or as much of it as I could temporarily
employ, soon lost interest for me, in favor of a more complex
attempt to relate my own capacities as a poet to my American
background; though Miss Lowell herself later produced a
brilliant specimen of its use in continuous development in her
“Twenty Four Hokku on a Modern Theme.” There are prob-
ably also other examples of Japanese adaptation to be found in the
poetry of Wallace Stevens— who has as well studied Chinese

161

models. I do not feel today that it has much value, except as an
exercise. Though poetry should be, as the Imagists said, primarily
objective, the subjective element is a fairly continuous under-
current, and cannot be banished without undergoing the peril
of making the poetic process frivolous in itself.

The effect of Imagism was not what the Imagists intended;
instead of drawing attention to the value of much vivid, direct,
objective, and clear poetry in early Greek, early Chinese, or lat-
ter-day French periods, the result of the Imagist anthologies pub-
lished through Miss Lowell from 1915 to 1917 was to promote
what may be called the free-verse controversy— which sooner or
later degenerated into the succeeding prose-poetry controversy.

A file of clippings now in my possession reveals the fact that
the academic critics were chiefly irritated by the novelty of the
Imagist form. The Imagists had also, in addition to practicing
new forms, forsworn the vague cosmic and optimistically pro-
phetic subjectivism that was so rampant in the works of Tenny-
son, Meredith, Swinburne, and Whitman. So those critics who
did not attack the Imagists on the grounds of lacking form, mel-
ody, rhythm, took as their ground of attack the Imagists’ pre-
occupation with objects immediately to hand, which they quali-
fied as myopic; while the Imagists’ preoccupation with their own
personal experiences was a clear mark of their egoism. Whether
these critics were named William Ellery Leonard, O. W. Firkins,
or Padraic Colum, such was their burden of complaint. Colum
even went to the lengths of saying that many of the poems in-
cluded in Miss Lowell’s first anthology were far more egoistic
in tone than those of Byron.

Other critics, such as John Livingston Lowes or Conrad Aiken
(both of whom later repented) pointed out that the range of
experience native to Imagist poetry was at best fragmentary, their
lines prosaically insipid, and that models of the same kind of
poetry could often be found in many prose works, especially
novels, where they were embedded in the narrative. This led
directly to the prose-poetry controversy.

The writer of this essay once took part in a discussion of just

162

what was meant by the term vers libre , which the Imagists con-
tinually employed; though this term was in many cases aban-
doned in favor of a better term: poems in unrhymed cadence.
The discussion occurred in the columns of an English weekly
journal in March of 1917, and T. S. Eliot was this writer’s oppo-
nent on that occasion. Eliot argued that there was a distinction
to be made between prose and verse, and that “the ghost of some
simple meter should lurk behind the arras in even the ‘freest’
verse, to advance menacingly as we doze, and withdraw as we
drowse. Freedom is only truly freedom when it appears against
the background of an artificial limitation.”

To this the writer reluctantly agreed, though he denied that
there was any fixed and abiding dividing line to be made between
prose and poetry. The controversy, however, then went on into
the question whether such a thing as the prose poem could, or
should, exist. All this is given here as a sample of the re-
action provoked by the Imagists in critical circles.

Eliot, however, has repeatedly shown— whatever his critical
theories may be— that, as regards rhythm, he stands firmly with
the free-verse promoters: while the degree to which he is in-
debted to Imagist practice may be illustrated by some lines which
I now extract from the opening of his Journey of the Magi:

‘A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey.

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.’

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling,

And wanting their liquor and women.2

Surely the thought here is divided into just such parallel
phrases as one finds in most Chinese poems— with the leading
constituents of the whole picture pointed up by alliteration, espe-
cially in the first lines, according to the Anglo-Saxon practice.

163

Nor can Eliot’s poetry, or even this specimen of it, escape the
charge leveled at the Imagists, of being too exclusively personal
to its creator. There is far more of Eliot’s individual and exclu-
sively personal experience embodied in every line he has writ-
ten, than his critics have yet suspected.

One may say here also that if the Imagists were personal to
the point of cultivating their egos exclusively, so too were some
of the very best Chinese poets. A great many Chinese poets were,
in fact, disappointed office-seekers or fallen favorites of some Em-
peror’s court or the other; retiring into the wilds, they took up
the careful cultivation of their egos in the face of nature, as a
compensation for their failure in a more sophisticated sphere. The
Imagists, similarly, were in many cases seeking some individual
way out of the mechanistic barbarism of our times, by writing
about nothing but what had directly moved them personally.

Moreover, to confute the pedants and the pedagogues, there
is abundant evidence to show that Chinese poetry was not always
the matter of “flat” and “deflected” tones, of limited rhyme-
schemes, and of overworked classical allusions that it became
about the time of the Sung dynasty. Arthur Waley— who once
freely acknowledged to me the metrical debt his fine Chinese
translations have owed to Pound’s Cathay— has, in one of his
volumes, pointed out the existence of long descriptive pieces, ir-
regular in form, and called “fu” by the Chinese; these are in fact,
prose-poems, though the prose types employed resemble more
closely Amy Lowell’s once notorious “polyphonic prose,” than
straightforward stuff. In short, the Chinese poets only became
pedantic in the employment of rules to govern their prosody, as
their own impulse towards poetry decayed.

For the rest, Imagism did not set itself the task of transmitting
directly the substance of classical Chinese poetry. Every genera-
tion of poets, Eastern or Western, is faced with the same con-
clusion, of coming to terms in some way with the times in which
they happen to be born. That they not infrequently find them-
selves at odds with their times is a visible fact, to be deduced not
only from Western, but also from much Chinese poetry. My
contention throughout this essay is that the Imagists, being de-
pendent on such hints as they could find in accessible transla-
tions, constructed a poetry rather more akin to the Chinese spirit

164

than the critics have hitherto suspected. Chinese poetry became
for them a crystallizing influence, rather than a model to be slav-
ishly imitated.

Moreover, in the case of a language basically so different in its
construction from English as classical Chinese, it is easy to see
that any translation must, of necessity, be inexact as regards its
ability to transmit all the shades and overtones of original mean-
ing. I. A. Richards has, indeed, made this fact the basis of one
of his volumes, in which the impossibility of translating Mencius
into reasonable English is graphically displayed. The Chinese ideo-
gram, as Fenollosa points out, presumably derives from primitive
picture writing: though the question of why certain radicals have
been combined to form given words, is still quite obscure in fact.
Any attempt to give the complete 'feel’ of the ideograms in Eng-
lish, is sure to lead to much over-elaboration; which was just
what misled Amy Lowell, when with Florence Ayscough’s as-
sistance, she produced the translations embodied in her book
known as Fir-Flower Tablets . The concision of the ancient Chi-
nese is lost, under a spate of English phrases.

No translator, therefore, can render classical Chinese exactly;
to do so would require the construction of another language
upon the same basis. About all that can be given is an approxi-
mation, a hint that, after all, despite all the barriers of language,
the Chinese spirit may have its counterparts in the West; and
that ‘all men are brothers,’ whatever their language, learned at
the knees of their parents. Let me therefore conclude this section
of my essay by quoting a short piece of old Chinese poetry, by
Liu Ch‘e, Sixth Emperor of the Han dynasty. Here is how it
appears, in the versions of three different translators:

The sound of rustling silk is stilled,

With dust the marble courtyard filled;

No footfalls echo on the floor,

Fallen leaves, in heaps, block up the door:

For she my pride, my lovely one is lost;

And I am left, in hopeless anguish tossed.3

— Herbert Giles .

The rustling of silk is discontinued,

Dust drifts over the courtyard.

There is no sound of footfall and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still.

And she, the rejoicer of the heart, is beneath
them;

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.4

— Ezra Pound.

The sound of her silk skirt has stopped.

On the marble pavement dust grows.

Her empty rooms are cold and still,

Fallen leaves are piled against the doors.

Longing for that lovely lady,

How can I bring my aching heart to rest?5

— Arthur Waley.

Each of these poems might be taken by the judicious reader as
an acknowledgment of the debt we all owe to Chinese literature,
and as a partial promise to repay.

Poetry is an act of communication. What is communicated in
poetry is not the emotion of the poet, but the objective equiva-
lent of that emotion stated in words (just as what is communi-
cated in painting is not what the painter sees, but the objective
equivalent of his vision stated in colors and in forms; and what
is communicated in sculpture is the objective equivalent of the
sculptor’s vision stated in the formal planes of wood, bronze, or
stone). All art is primarily making; and beauty is “that which
seen pleases”; a definition on which both East and West can
agree. Poetry is therefore an aesthetic object made up out of
words, with the purpose in view of communicating something.

Therefore, the good student of poetry must be one exception-
ally sensitive to words, both from the point of view of their
external musical qualities as sound, and from the point of view
of the way they affect one another in the construction of the
phrase or the sentence. Poetry might also be termed the highest
possible articulation of human speech; that is to say, it is human
speech heightened by the sense of rhythm that we naturally de-
rive from the muscular activity of our own bodies, and guided

1 66

by the creative imagination. As to what the imagination is, and
how it works, I must refer the reader to Coleridge, and to that
famous passage in Chapter Fourteen of Biographia Liter aria for
the only satisfactory definition. Whatever its imaginative con-
stituents may be, a good poem is so bound up in the language in
which it is written, that translations of poetry from one language
to another are notoriously difficult, unless the translator happens
also to be a poet.

Poetry, through its words, aims at producing in the reader
something of the same state of mind the poet recalled when he
set down the words which form the external content of the poem.
These words usually combine objective observation and subjec-
tive feeling in a novel and unusual way. The most accepted
method, for poets of the West at least, to combine these mental
constituents is by means of metaphor, as Fenollosa long ago
pointed out. A metaphor is an image, that is to say it is an analogy
drawn between something in external nature and the feeling that
arises within the observer. Therefore Shakespeare was producing
a perfect short Imagist poem when he wrote, in Hamlet:

But see, the morn in russet mantle clad,

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

There is, however, one important qualification to be made.
Inasmuch as we may suppose the reader of poetry to be a person
possessing a wide range and diversity of interests in life, there is
no reason why a poet— however Imagistic his intention— should
not use his material with the purpose of being philosophic, di-
dactic, satiric, sentimental, or merely vivid. Imagism, in its mani-
festoes, simply said “Be as concrete as possible”; not “Do not
teach anything.” However, it is possible to construct poems con-
sisting solely of a single natural observation without commentary
of any sort. This is precisely what was done in Japan, first by the
composers of tanka and later by the hokkn poets.

With the limitations of the Japanese method I have already
dealt; therefore I shall not attempt here any recapitulation. The
same limitation does not apply to the great Chinese classical
poets. Indeed, theirs is probably the greatest body of poetry aris-
ing from natural and familiar fact that we have in the world.
However, the Chinese poetry still possesses certain marked limi-

tations in subject matter from our Western point of view, which
may have been the reason why so many Western poets have re-
cently been turning away from it, since the days of the Imagist
reform. With these limitations I must now deal.

As Arthur Waley in his A Hundred and Seventy Chinese
Poems pointed out, the love of a man for a woman is not a theme
often touched upon by Chinese poets, after the period of the
Han dynasty. To the Oriental, sexual relationships were supposed
to have nothing to do with either companionship or sympathy;
these feelings the classical Chinese poet reserved entirely for his
friends; with the result (according to Waley) that fully one-half
the poetry in the Chinese language deals with the theme of part-
ing with one’s friends. Another large number of Chinese poems
deals with the theme, common enough in a country where sex-
ual relationships were entered into purely for biological reasons,
of the deserted wife or concubine; such poems, as Waley has
stated, were written indifferently by poets of either sex, and were
thought of as being vaguely allegorical, as recalling the thwart-
ing of public ambitions on the part of their authors, who be-
longed to the official mandarin class. Moreover, an enormous
majority of early Chinese poems are infused with feelings more
closely akin to the Taoist or the Chinese Buddhist conceptions of
the interrelations of man and nature, than to the severely social
and ethical conceptions of the official Confucianism. Finally, as
the older Chinese literature grew, a process took place within it
that is closely paralleled by Chinese art; the copying and imita-
tion of older models became universal, leading to the mannered
artificiality of almost all Chinese poetry produced later than the
twelfth century.

Even more serious than all this, from the Western point of
view, is the fact that Chinese poetry deals very infrequently with
the supernatural. Such a poem as Po Ch‘u-I’s “Everlasting
Wrong” does indeed stand in “garish isolation,” not only to the
main body of that .poet’s work, but to the general tendency of
Chinese poetry. Except for Ch‘u Yuan’s famous “Li Sao,” with
its marvelous description of “the genius that roams the moun-
tains, clad in wisteria and girdled in ivy,” and its supernatural
machinery, I can scarcely recall another Chinese poem that takes
the supernatural very seriously. The Chinese Taoist, or the Chi-

1 68

nese Buddhist, in distinction alike to the primitive Buddhist or to
the Christian ascetic, kept his eyes fixed upon nature, in order
to discover the secret workings of her laws. A Chinese Dante
would be impossible; such speculations as to the spirit-life of the
dead would have been thought of as being both impious and
dangerous. Human life, in all its variety and continuity, not the
otherworld, was important to the Sons of Han. Indeed, it is
precisely the otherwordly side of Christianity— that blend of
Greek mystical speculation and of Hebraic moral precept— that
has, for good or ill, set its mark on all Western poetry, and made
of it something so much more complex in its mingled intellectual
and emotional striving than anything present in the classical Chi-
nese poets, that the Chinese seem naive by comparison.

For example: the Chinese poet might refer to a seascape as
being blue or gray, calm or stormy, but never “terror-stricken.”
Such metaphorical adjectives are as good as unknown. Also the
long, farfetched simile is quite unknown in Chinese poetry. The
reason is that the simile was almost undoubtedly developed among
European poets in order to heighten the spiritual impression to
be made by their work. By referring some material fact to some
other fact more extraordinary (and the more farfetched the
comparison, the better according to most “moderns”), the poet
proved that he was one visited by the Muses, or under the direct
inspiration of a God. It is curious to note that no Chinese poet
ever laid direct claim to such divine inspiration (except possibly
Li-Po, who claimed to find it in drunkenness) ; that that there is
a connection between this fact and the absence of long similes
in Chinese poetry, is, to my mind, not to be doubted.

The Chinese poet, then, was one readily content with his hu-
man limitations: he was not one who ‘neglected to consider the
ultimate fate of the body,’ to quote a phrase from a quite cele-
brated Chinese poem.

The Western European poets were not so easily satisfied: they
were driven alike by their background of mystical and other-
worldly Christianity, as well as by their own ingrown nationalism
—even more rampant after 1918 than before— and by the mon-
strous pride of Western secular science (always promising a new
world to be set at man’s disposal, and always devising some
new brand of sheer hell) into a renewed affirmation of the su-

169

pernatural element in poetry. They escaped, after 1918, from
‘Weltschmerz’ of a new kind of disordered romanticism, explored
only by the Expressionists in Germany and the surrealists of
France, by proclaiming for themselves, “a new order.” A more
introspective and more complex kind of metaphysical poetry, de-
rivable from Rilke, or from Donne, or from Paul Valery, full of
the most farfetched metaphors and similies possible, became
fashionable in Western literary circles. This poetry, more and
more common since T. S. Eliot turned aside from his earlier
Imagism to explore his own “waste land,” has already shown
itself to be strong in dogmatic assertion, but weak in powers of
communication. And so Imagism, as a opening path that had,
from 1 9 10-12 onward, led largely in the direction taken previously
by many great Chinese poets, became a neglected path— at worst
a passing phase, at best an experiment that might expect to re-
ceive a few passing pats from those professors who at least real-
ized that it led to a reconsideration of poetic form.

In the highest poetry of the West that we have— the poetry of
the Greek tragedians, of Dante in Italy, of Shakespeare and his
contemporaries in England, of Goethe and some of his contem-
poraries and immediate followers in Germany— the linguistic ex-
pressions used by the poet always appear to be fused directly
with the thought: the style becomes the man. This is not true
of many of the most recent and “advanced” modern poets now
writing in English. In their eagerness to get away from anything
that smacks of sentimental romanticism, they have attempted to
recreate the style of Donne, and to apply it to the material of
the present day; forgetting that an intellectually adopted manner,
without corresponding emotional stress, makes only for ped-
antry, not poetry; and that Donne himself most frequently jus-
tified his style when his feelings were most completely engaged.
In these ultramodern poets— I might cite Mr. W. H. Auden, as
a good example— thought has so far outrun verbal expression, that
the authors concerned seem to be seeking for means of expressing
some range of thought that is altogether so peculiar to them-
selves as to be inexpressible in any definite terms that we know.
Poetry, to them, has become a means of communicating, to an
increasingly dwindling audience, ranges of experience so far re-
moved from the normal that only the practical and patient reader

170

can make anything out of them. These poets have therefore been
forced to defend themselves continually against the charge of
obscurity.

A prolonged and a careful study of the Chinese poets, who
have always so gracefully and completely succeeded in stating
their thought, would do much towards clarifying the muddled
intentions of the modern poet. It might even succeed in bringing
poetry back into popular favor, as the most natural and complete
way we human beings have of defining our attitudes to existence.

However, it is quite useless to deny that there are whole ranges
of human experience familiar enough to us, which were seemingly
quite foreign to the best Chinese poets of the Han, ‘Tang, and
Sung dynasties. These poets were, one and all, trained as civil
servants under the old Imperial system, on which the stability as
well as the continuity of the Chinese people rested. A great num-
ber of them, owing to dynastic intrigues or for some other rea-
son, failed of political advancement and took up poetry as a
means of consoling themselves. We in the West would find it
somewhat comic if poetry were to be practiced widely by dis-
appointed politicians (I am far from saying that our kind of
politicians would not be benefited if they only knew a little more
about poetry). Our conception of the poet is that of a man who
necessarily stands completely aloof from local politics, with his
mind fixed on values greater than the temporal. We have even
become suspicious of poets who write as events move them, who
are moved primarily by external occasions to compose their
poetry; forgetting that one of the greatest, Goethe, in his con-
versations with Eckermann, qualified his own poetry as being
entirely “occasioned.”

The character of the classical Chinese poet, as a member of
the official mandarin class, limited him to themes familiar to this
class. The poets of the West, drawn from every class in the com-
munity, have long since claimed all human experience as their
province. It is useless, therefore, to attempt to create an influx
of influence from the Chinese poets upon the West, by means
of any strict line-by-line analysis and comparison of specific
Chinese poems with specific Western ones. What we have to
achieve is a transmission, not of detail, but of general method:
and this transmission, I feel, took place not only in such Imagist

171

poets as freely acknowledged their debt, such as Amy Lowell,
Ezra Pound, and myself, but also in others who have similarly
displayed an objective approach akin to the Chinese. For in-
stance, I might refer the reader to poems by William Carlos Wil-
liams, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens. The thing that all
these poets have in common with the Chinese, is neither a precise
similarity in subject matter, nor a direct imitation of form; it is
rather a spirit of intense observation, of patient surrender to truth,
of complete identification with the object. Such poems as, for
example, William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Lily,” or Marianne
Moore’s “The Monkeys,” or Wallace Stevens’ “The Bird with the
Coppery, Keen Claws” could not have been the same poems as
they are, if the older Chinese poets had never existed; which is
far from saying that any of them bear any external resemblance
to any particular Chinese poem.

Since the affinity that may exist between the Chinese poets of
the past and the Western poets of the preseht day is altogether
a matter of approach, rather than of detail— and since the Imagist
poets largely discussed in this essay were those who felt this
affinity most keenly over a wide range of subject matter— it surely
follows that for most of us, unfamiliar as we are with Chinese
ideograms, the best way that we can assimilate the Chinese influ-
ence is through the study of translations, and by comparison of
these with the work of the Imagists, as well as with the work of
those Western poets— three of whom I have already mentioned—
who have felt the Imagist influence most keenly. Such a study,
I am assured, would result in giving to the Imagist poets a posi-
tion far higher than they now have in most academic circles. It
may be true, as has frequently been stated, that none of the
Imagists were great poets. (No one seems to know just what a
great poet is, until a long time after the person most concerned
is safely dead; and at least one poet who has recently been pro-
claimed as great, W. B. Yeats, was undoubtedly influenced in
the development of his final manner by Imagism, though to this
was added a habit of mind more Celtic than English.) But the
Imagists, at least, opened up a pathway between East and West
that seems to me, at least, one better worth pursuing than the
“intellectualist” direction taken by the most recently discussed

172

group of English poets. That is their historical importance in
literary history.

In Chinese thought, from antiquity down to the present day,
there has been no separation made between human nature and
external nature; and it is for this reason that the Chinese poets
have so easily been able to shift their attention from one to the
other. The same unity between what is without and what is
within has controlled all traditional Chinese philosophy. Confu-
cius and Lao-tzu did not really differ as regards the object to
be sought for by wisdom, but only as to the means to be em-
ployed to attain it.

We in the West today stand at the end of a long watershed
of human history. Since the days of Descartes and of Newton,
that is to say for the last three centuries of Occidental develop-
ment, science— whether pure or applied— has ruled over the West-
ern mind. Western science has been governed by the assumption
that all the phenomena of matter, of organic life and growth, of
the development of personality, of instinct and of reason, have
been controlled by causes external to us; that any gaps in our
knowledge concerning these causes can only be remedied by
the acquisition of more scientific knowledge; that it is only
through such knowledge, not through an instinctive faith or an
imaginative vision, that man can become in any way master of
his own destiny. Nevertheless, no amount of science can tell us
why, in the present conflict, we Americans should take our stand
upon the basis of those human rights that are affirmed in the Con-
stitution of the United States. That we should affirm the four
freedoms of man in the teeth of Axis opposition, throughout the
world, is not a scientific, but an ethical fact; and science is, ethi-
cally speaking, neutral. Our ethical direction towards democracy
is not given us by scientific knowledge but by instinctive faith
and imaginative vision; and this is also true of the direction that
has now been taken by the Chinese people.

The Chinese people have been forced, by the external circum-
stances of the last half-century at least, to take up one Western
innovation after another; and they were well in process of making
a successful readjustment to the ideals of our Western democratic
ways of life when— thanks to Japanese aggression— they were
forced to the defense of their soil and their final right to govern

173

themselves; a defense which surely, when the history of this
war is written, will outrank any other in the field. With the
downfall of the older Imperial system, much of the traditional
knowledge and the culture of the Chinese people has inevitably
disappeared; so much has already lost its contact with the Chi-
nese earth, like the Chinese objects now scattered and reassem-
bled in our Western art museums, that one often wonders how
much can be transmitted to the future, even by the Chinese them-
selves, concerning one of the greatest and longest lasting civiliza-
tions which this planet has ever known. But the Chinese people
have, since 1937, shown so strong a principle of instinctive soli-
darity within themselves, as well as such a stubborn and persistent
determination to remain masters of their own destiny, and to
endure everything rather than to fall under the control of a
military clique directed from Japan, that we now have good
cause to hope, not only that full Chinese independence may be
restored, but that the older Chinese culture; philosophy, fine art,
and craftsmanship may also be revived and revitalized, in forms
more appropriate to the needs of today.

We of the Occident can best help the Chinese to this consum-
mation by studying for ourselves and understanding more com-
pletely the great fundamental landmarks of Chinese culture, in
architecture, sculpture, painting, literature, and philosophy. “Who
helps another, helps himself” applies here, no less than in the
political and economic sphere, where China’s continuance as an
active combatant on the side of the Western democracies becomes
every day a matter of more critical importance. Thus, in the
return for the great cultural wealth that the Chinese have already
given to us, we of the West can see to it that this culture is not
only preserved but restored to its proper functions and propor-
tions. Such, rather than the restoration of bygone European
culture, now— so far as Europe itself is concerned, utterly de-
stroyed and made waste, thanks to the Nazi conceptions of race
and nationalism— should be our American destiny, for the next
thousand years. “When both our central being and outward har-
mony are carried to the point of full perfection, heaven and
earth are in a state of tranquillity, and all things will be nourished
and flourish.”

174

William York Tindall

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

FOR a good many years writers of England and Amer-
ica, troubled by the civilization around them, have turned to the
East. To some it has meant mystery, color, and freedom from
habit; but to more it has promised a spiritual enlargement which
the West appears to have denied. Contrary to the general opinion,
the temper of much of the best contemporary literature is re-
ligious, and, not infrequently, religious means Oriental. Three im-
portant writers of the present century will illustrate the point:
William Butler Yeats, the greatest modern poet; D. H. Lawrence,
one of the most celebrated novelists; and Aldous Huxley.

In order to understand their histories and their work it is nec-
essary, however painful this may be, briefly to consider the state
of their world. It is a place where machines have suddenly multi-
plied the population and elevated a class without what Mr. Eliot
likes to call sensibility. The popular education decreed by this
class has at once spread knowledge and spread it thin. The sud-
den concentration of people in cities has killed the local roots
which nourish sentiments. And what seems worse, science and
materialism have destroyed for many writers the religious tradi-
tions upon which their feelings once centered and their art.

Isolated from an audience by these changes and denied public
expression, many writers write for themselves alone or for a few
friends. Henry James, for example, and James Joyce, slamming
the doors of ivory towers, pursued in privacy an elaborate, great
art which increased the confusion out of doors. But other artists
of equal stature have remained outdoors to seek their own and
the world’s cure. Deprived of their fathers’ belief but feeling its

175

need and believing belief as necessary for their art as it was for
Dante’s, they have turned not to private literature but to private
or all but private religion according to their capacity. The in-
vention or discovery of some substitute for the religion they had
lost or, to put it in more general terms, the search for spiritual
satisfaction in times apparently hostile to it constitutes what is
known as the romantic movement. Sometimes the substitute for
religion is another religion, sometimes a devotion to objects which
are not normally adored, such as animals, flowers, or music.
Adolf Hitler, discussing Wagner, is reported to have said: “His
music is my religion. I go to his concerts as others go to church.”
To the religious impulse persisting out of church or in the ab-
sence of suitable objects T. E. Hulme gave the name of “spilt
religion.” This definition of romanticism would be more pleasing
if it did not define so well a state that persists.

Although a few gifted, emotional men like Gerard Manley
Hopkins, G. K. Chesterton, and T. S. Eliot rediscovered Chris-
tianity, many more have adopted extraordinary religions which,
since the West seems at fault, have commonly assumed an Eastern
character. For the literary man, wandering in Mr. Eliot’s waste
land or between Arnold’s two worlds, theosophy has been a
favorite resort, but sometimes his choice has fallen upon an Ori-
ental or pseudo-Oriental system which, if more respectable, is
equally synthetic. The somewhat more respectable synthesis is
Huxley’s choice, while theosophy contented Yeats and Law-
rence.

At the risk of boring the theosophist with what he is almost
sure to know, I should like to review the essentials of his belief.
In 1875 Mme. H. P. Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical
Society, arrived in New York from Tibet where certain adepts,
she announced, had filled her with philosophy. Her Tibetan
masters, if any, appear to have been liberal Buddhists and Hindus,
united no doubt by a spirit of compromise. Although theosophy
contains Western ingredients such as anthropology and all sorts
of Orphic, Kabalistical, Hermetic, and Pythagorean matters, the
essence of Mme. Blavatsky’s system is a mixture of Buddhism
and Hinduism, including reincarnation, karma, and nirvana. Like
yoga, which it loosely embraces, theosophy is a method of intro-
ducing the particular soul to what Mme. Blavatsky called Anima

176

Mundi. This is accomplished not by meditation and discipline
but, tehipered perhaps to the convenience of Westerners, by
ceremonial magic, symbolism, and good intentions. Such prac-
tices and such beliefs, she said, were once maintained in Atlantis
and, after its submersion, obscurely survived in the doctrines of
Egyptians, Aztecs, Rosier ucians, alchemists, and most of all, Far
Easterners of all varieties. Her aim was less to spread Oriental
religion than, through Oriental religion, to recover Atlantis. But
in the absence of Atlantis theosophy remains substantially
Oriental.

Like Henry More, Emerson, and Irving Babbitt in their times,
Mme. Blavatsky and her disciples in theirs were discontented
with a civilization alien to the spirit. To destroy rationalism they
sought the irrational and the profound; to remedy the familiar
they sought the exotic and the remote; to cure Western material-
ism they sought its opposite. In place, for example, of Darwin’s
notions about the rectilinear descent of beasts, which they
considered bestial, they proposed the circular ascent of spirits.
Their immodest proposal takes its place in the romantic tradition
with Emerson’s Oversoul, Walpole’s gothic castles, Bergson’s
metaphysics, the music of Wagner, and the Herrenvolk and other
noble savages of countless inventors. That Mme. Blavatsky’s con-
ceits have also failed to cure what may be incurable cannot be
held against them. It is unfortunate, however, for the mutual un-
derstanding of East and West, but, considering the character of
romanticism, not unnatural that so many writers of our time saw
the light of Asia through the imperfect eyes of Mme. Blavatsky.

In her capacity of middleman between East and West, this
extraordinary woman enlightened Yeats, who was ready to re-
ceive what she had to offer. For some years he had held the
biologists and physicists responsible for the materialism of the
West and for the spiritual limitation that accompanied it. Darwin,
Huxley, and Tyndall, he complained in the early i88o’s, had
robbed him of the religion of his youth and had given him noth-
ing with which to replace it. Forced by his intellect and their
teachings to accept materialism, he was miserable under it and

177

he longed for something to satisfy the persistent, irrational yearn-
ings of his soul. The Church of Ireland would no longer do.
The new materialism disagreed with his sentiments. In this quan-
dary he discovered theosophy, which was not only as hostile
to Darwin as he was but offered his soul, without apparent of-
fense to his intellect, the expansion it desired.

Yeats first encountered this romantic mixture of the irrational,
the exotic, and the occult in the works of A. P. Sinnett, the
London representative of Mme. Blavatsky. In 1885 Yeats read
Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism (1883), which tells of cyclical re-
incarnation in a manner calculated to inflame the weary Dar-
winist. Thus inspired, Yeats, together with A. E., Charles John-
ston, and John Eglinton, founded in Dublin a Hermetic society.
The members, instructed by a Brahmin philosopher from Lon-
don and by an Orientalist of Trinity College, read papers to one
another. After this preparation they were chartered in 1886 by
Sinnett as the Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society. At the
Monday meetings of the “household,” as it was known, they
discussed Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrme and the yoga aphorisms of
Patanjali, or they watched A.E. and Yeats experimenting with
ceremonial magic on the floor, or they listened to Annie Besant,
Mohini Chatterjee, and other visiting adepts. The members of*
this seminar never quite recovered from it. Charles Johnston
spent his life translating yoga aphorisms, the Bhagavadgita , and
fragments of the Upanishads. A.E., whose devotion to Mme.
Blavatsky knew no limits, not only based upon her teachings the
mystical practices which he recorded in verse and prose, but
seems even to have based his economic theories on The Secret
Doctrine . When he was not rereading Blavatsky, he was reading
the Upanishads to which she and Emerson had led him. Unlike
A.E., Yeats never achieved mysticism, for which he wanted the
temper; but moved by a more restless curiosity, he emerged from
the Dublin Lodge, which contented A.E., and visited Mme.
Blavatsky, now in London, to add personality to doctrine.

Curiosity and further need next impelled Yeats to add the
Kabala to his Oriental library. In 1887 he joined the Order of
the Golden Dawn, a London society of alchemists, Rosicrucians,
and Kabalists under the leadership of Liddle MacGregor Mathers,
author of The Kabala Unveiled (1887). George Moore was right

178

to suspect the extent of Yeats’ knowledge of the Z ohar; for al-
though Yeats displays some acquaintance with the ten Sephiroth ,
the Kabala defies the casual understanding. Such knowledge as
he possessed was found in the introduction to Mathers’ book,
which had been inspired by French commentaries. Ignorance,
however, did not keep Yeats from copying out in Hebrew char-
acters the Shem Hamphorash (YHWH or Jahveh) with its sev-
enty-two possible variations, a favorite Kabalistical exercise.

This recreation, however, proved meager when compared with
what awaited Yeats when he visited Paris during the 1890’s. At
this time Paris was the center of occult studies. Surrounded with
alembic and gallipot and under the frightful auspices of the
Sabbatic Goat, alchemists hunted the formula for Hermetic gold;
in crypt and sewer or worse, Satanists celebrated the black mass;
while in back parlors disciples of Eliphas Levi ceaselessly inter-
preted the Kabala. The principal cult of many was UOrdre
Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix, over which presided Stanislas de
Guaita, disciple of Levi, magus, alchemist, Rosicrucian, and Chris-
tian Kabalist. Yeats read Levi, took part in Kabalistical orgies
with his followers and with those of Saint-Martin, an eighteenth-
century mystic; and on one occasion at least he paid the great
de Guaita a visit. To the pleasure of being a poet, Yeats ob-
served, was added that of being an adept. Darwin, Huxley,
Tyndall, and the British middle classes were temporarily for-
gotten. And on the poet’s return to London memory made the
quotidian more tolerable. It is plain that these visits to Paris took
the place for Yeats of going to church on Sunday. His essays
of later years contain fond accounts of his sabbatical excursions,
and the short stories about Michael Robartes which he wrote
while memory was fresh, “Rosa Alchemica,” “The Tables of the
Law,” and “The Adoration of the Magi” (de Guaita was a
magus), preserve the occult atmosphere of Paris no less faith-
fully than Huysmans’ La-Bas ,

These stories were not the only works Yeats wrote under the
spell of theosophy and the Kabala. His impressive edition of the
prophetic books of William Blake, in whom he recognized a
fellow adept, is also colored and shaped by Blavatsky and
Mathers. For much of the esoteric matter of The Shadowy
Waters , The Unicorn from the Stars, The Hour Glass, and other

179

plays Yeats consulted his Parisian memories. In The Countess
Cathleen rioting students of the National University detected an
odor of “Buddhism,” and their diagnosis, if not their conduct,
was correct. Yeats’ essay entitled “Magic” (1901) describes his
Hermetic interests and reveals the theory of poetic symbolism
for which he was indebted more to Mme. Blavatsky than to Ver-
laine or Mallarme. It was her idea in Isis Unveiled that objects,
myths, and events of this world are linked by magical corre-
spondence with Anima Mundi or the memory of nature, and, as
Yeats puts it, “this great mind and great memory can be evoked
by symbols.” Yeats’ aim in poetry was less to find a verbal for-
mula for a state of mind in the manner of the French Symbolists
than by using Irish symbols as a magus would to call down upon
himself and his readers the influence of the Spirit. The poet
became enchanter, his poetry incantation and a kind of devotion.
Few of Yeats’ poems in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899),
except for those on elemental spirits, appear To owe their matter
to Blavatsky, but most of them were written according to her
prescription.

The Irish middle classes, refusing to be enchanted, preferred
their own form of devotion. While Yeats fought for ten years
a hopeless fight with the “mob” and whetted his style upon it,
he had little time for the occult. From 1901 to 1917 when his
marriage to an occultist inspired him again, his chief connections
with the East, except for an occasional reference in a play, were
his introductions to Gitanjali , translations from the Bengali by
Rabindranath Tagore (1912), and to his friend Ezra Pound’s edi-
tion of Ernest Fenollosa’s Certain Noble Plays of Japan (1916).
These Noh-plays shaped all of Yeats’ subsequent plays for mask-
ers and dancers and provided an “aristocratic” refuge from jour-
nalists and the mob; for his Japanese imitations were to be
performed in the privacy of a drawing-room for fit audience
though few. Pound lent this Eastern ivory tower to a Westerner
defeated by the West, but Pound’s interest in the hokku and in
Confucius, who, despite one’s natural impression, was known to
the West before Pound recommended him, seems to have left
Yeats unmoved.

In 1917 Yeats published a long essay, Per Arnica Silentia Lunaey
only the second part of which, entitled “Anima Mundi,” need de-

180

tain us. In order to free his mind still further from the world of
matter, says Yeats, he had frequented mediums, despite de
Guaita’s warning against them; he had delighted in images which
evoked transcendental sensations; and he had even brooded over
abstract technical words which time has turned to poetry. This
is a cloudy way of saying that in addition to the ivory tower of
aristocracy Yeats needed Anima Mundi once more; for nothing
is less like the Irish middle classes than Anima Mundi. As he pur-
sued meditation to the point of trance, deliberately provoking
visions from the great memory where all things are stored, his
guide for the moment was Henry More’s Immortality of the
Soul , a work proving the existence of daemons and other spirits
and richly informative about their deportment after the death of
the body. But “Anima Mundi” is Blavatsky’s word for what
More, who was familiar with Latin, was content to call the Soul
of the World. Yeats was improving More by Blavatsky and mak-
ing Blavatsky and de Guaita respectable by Cambridge Plato-
nism. Under this decent disgifise they presided over these fancies.
In this sense Per Arnica Silentia Lunae is remotely Oriental in ori-
gin and also in the sense that Henry More’s congenial wisdom
was founded largely upon Plotinus, Hermes, and Pythagoras,
who are as close to the East as Mme. Blavatsky. If to the impa-
tient Orientalist Yeats’ Orientalism seems secondhand, it is only
because it was secondhand— or third.

Mediums to Yeats, as witches to More, proved the existence of
Spirit; but mediums were even more helpful. One of them, Yeats’
wife in fact, received and dictated his next important essay on
the Spirit, leaving for Yeats little of the author’s chore apart from
syntax. This product of supernatural collaboration is called A
Vision (1925). After some attempt to mystify by attributing its
inspiration to the Speculum Angelorum et Hominorum (the
Latin, I am afraid, is Yeats’ own) by Giraldus and to an obscure
Arabian tradition, Yeats admitted . that while he and his wife
were near Los Angeles shortly after their marriage certain dae-
mons, accosting Mrs. Yeats in her bed, had started communicat-
ing. On subsequent nights these daemons, who seem to have been
preoccupied with pneumatology, psychology, and history, told
Mrs. Yeats, while her husband took notes to her dictation, that
the progress of the soul may be represented by the twenty-eight

181

phases of the moon, arranged around a gyre or wheel. Each
phase, except the full moon and the dark, which are spiritual holi-
days, is the incarnation of a psychological type according to the
proportions of light and dark in that phase. The bright or anti-
thetical fortnight includes the better sort of men, the artists and
heroes; the dark or primary phases embody objective men. Each
soul makes the circuit of reincarnation several times before its re-
lease from time and destiny into the thirteenth cone; and between
incarnations the soul follows a prescribed course of memory,
purgation, dream, and sleep. During the dictation of this scheme
frustrating, earth-bound spirits jumbled the daemonic messages
by a sort of occult static; and good or bad smells told Yeats of
the absence or presence of these wicked shades that he might be
on his guard and take or refuse to take notes as the case might
be. After several years in which the family could have enjoyed
little repose, the talkative spirits finished their mission, Mrs. Yeats
shut her mouth, and Yeats his notebook. If this elaborate system
was dictated by daemons there is nothing more to say except per-
haps for a word of astonishment or awe. But it is possible that
Yeats was deceiving or deceived and that the work is his own
synthesis of more or less Asiatic wisdom.

Multiplied by four, his system resembles the spiral chain of
reincarnation around seven planets as taught by Sinnett in Eso-
teric Buddhism and by Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine . Their
authority seems to have been the Buddhist wheel of destiny
around which spirits move until they escape from time into nir-
vana. But the Buddhist wheel does not involve the moon, which
Yeats could have found in the bright and dark fortnights of the
Upanishads. Yeats frequently cites these Hindu fortnights as par-
allels lending authority to his own; but what he cited as parallel
may be source. It would not be difficult to impose Hindu moon
upon Buddhist wheel. For the states of soul between incarnations
Yeats could have found what he wanted in the Upanishads or in
treatises on yoga. But the conflict of opposites and the alternating
cycles of history which also turn upon Yeats’ wheel seem to owe
less to Asia. They come perhaps from Plato, Empedocles, Hegel,
Vico, and Spengler, with all of whom Yeats was on familiar
terms.

Though Occidental in origin, Yeats’ philosophy of history has

182

an Oriental bearing. In his system two opposite civilizations, the
antithetical and the primary or the spiritual and the secular, al-
ternate every two thousand years. At present Europe is nearing
the end of a primary period, beginning with Christ, and charac-
terized by materialism, democracy, and heterogeneity. Asia, on
the other hand, and by Asia here he meant the Near East, is aris-
tocratic and spiritual. Yeats looked hopefully toward the beget-
ting by Asia on Europe of a new spiritual era in Europe to begin
about the year 2000. By his wheel of history Yeats explained to
himself, since few readers now dared to invade his privacy, his
dissatisfaction with the modern Europe which had imposed pri-
vacy and occultism upon him. And by his wheel Yeats explained
his love for an Asia which seemed to represent his dreams of
aristocracy and religion or Europe’s opposite. The synthesis of
West and East in Yeats’ system, with its emphasis upon the East,
epitomizes the destined union of those conflicting opposites.

Meanwhile questions occur to the Western mind. One may ask
how a poet could produce a system so formidable and abstract as
this. But Yeats had a gift for abstractions, which he detested; and
he admits that he wrote A Vision to purge his mind of abstrac-
tions, leaving it free to create poems. If one asks how seriously
Yeats, a man of high intelligence, took his synthetic doctrine and
what purpose it served, one may recall his own answer to these
questions. He says somewhere that although his critical mind
mocked, he was delighted. He felt that a poet needs a philosophy,
a religion, or a myth in order to excite his passions, and, failing
to discover a suitable myth in modern Europe, he turned in-
ventor. His system was to him what theology was to Dante,
opium to Coleridge, or alcohol to Poe. Poe may have been a
drunkard because he liked to drink but Yeats was an occultist
for the sake of art. The dictating daemon who said, “We have
come to give you metaphors for your poetry,” knew what he was
talking about. Many of Yeats’ best poems, the best poems of our
time, were inspired by his system; and whatever has that effect,
though it may pass our understanding, compels, if not adherence,
our most genial applause.

That memorable poem “Sailing to Byzantium” was so inspired.
Byzantium, situated between East and West, is Yeats’ image for
the aristocratic and spiritual place of his desires. The lords and

183

ladies to whom he will sing bear little resemblance to the English
or Irish audience. His song of “what is past or passing or to
come” cannot but suggest a phrase in Yeats’ own translation of
the Mandookya Upanishad: “Past, present, future— everything is
Om.” The sages who “perne in a gyre” are Asiatic masters, spir-
itual advisers to Yeats and his aristocrats. The nature from which
Yeats will be free is not only his senility but Europe and the cy-
cle of time and destiny. Byzantium is a poetic equivalent of nir-
vana, shaped to the needs of a modern European. “Two Songs
from a Play,” an equally distinguished poem, is based upon the
wheel of history as suggested by Plato’s “Timaeus,” Vergil’s Mes-
sianic eclogue, and Shelley’s chorus from Hellas. The poem tells
of the transition from the Asiatic, antithetical period, symbolized
by “Babylonian starlight,” Plato, and “Doric discipline,” to the
new order of Europe, symbolized by Christ. Pythagoras, who
appears in several of the later poems, symbolizes the Orphic sage,
half Asiatic and half Greek. If romanticism is the pursuit of a
spiritual ideal in unpropitious times, these poems are romantic in
theme. But in manner they are what we have come to associate
with the classics. The language, unlike Wordsworth’s, is general.
The order of words is natural. The manner is as grand as Gib-
bon’s. Nothing of our time approaches more closely the feeling
of Ben Jonson and Racine. It is both pleasing and odd that the
Oriental and the occult, which have served romantics so faith-
fully, should have inspired these classical poems.

Some of Yeats’ early romantic poems, such as “Anashuya and
Vijaya” and “The Indian upon God,” written during the 1880’s,
deal with Brahma and Hindu worship. In some of his poems of
the 1930’s, such as “Meru,” in The King of the Great Clock
Tower , Yeats returned to these Far Eastern themes. This return
was due to his friendship with a learned yogi named Shri Purohit
Swami, whom Yeats met in 1931. Through conversation with
this initiate Yeats was enabled at last to bid Blavatsky fare-
well and to see his Hindus plain. As a sign of his sainthood the
Swami had received during his initiation as his own stigmatum
the bump on Buddha’s brow. Deeply moved, Yeats saw in this
mark and in the asceticism and courtesy of its owner an intima-
tion of Asia at its best “and where it is most different from Eu-
rope.” In his enthusiasm Yeats went so far as to compare the

184

Swami with the theologians of Byzantium. This spiritual man had
been sent by his master, a man sublimer than he, to act as apostle
to the West. Although provided with a letter from the founder
of the Bharat-Dharwa Maha?nandely the Swami was unable to se-
cure an audience with the Pope. Failing to win this eminent con-
vert, he had to rest content with Yeats, who in 1932 wrote an
introduction to An Indian Monk by the Swami. All his life, said
Yeats, he had borrowed from the East, selecting for admiration
everything that was least European, “as though groping back-
ward towards our common mother.,, Here at last in this book of
ancient Hindu discipline he had found a philosophy which satis-
fied his intellect and imposed unity upon the occult experiences
he had enjoyed throughout his life. In 1934 Yeats wrote an intro-
duction to the Swami’ s Holy Mountainy an* account of his mas-
ter’s initiation on Mount Meru. After noting some further
corroborations of his great wheel in the Upanishadsy Yeats de-
votes his essay to a technical account of yoga, posture, medita-
tion, and ultimate union with the Self, for which he was indebted
to the S warm’s translation of the Yoga-Sutras or aphorisms of
Patanjali, upon which Yeats had cut his teeth in Dublin, and for
which, when the translation was printed in 1938, he provided an-
other introduction. Meanwhile in T. S. Eliot’s Criterion (July,
1935) Yeats published an essay on the uMandookya Upanishad ”
in which he analyzed Om or Aum and discussed Tantric yoga or
sex as a way to God. It was not for nothing that Yeats called
himself in one of his last poems a “wild old wicked man.”

The climax of Yeats’ Oriental career was marked by his col-
laboration with the Swami in a translation of The Ten Principal
Upanishads (1937). Dissatisfied with the “muddy English” of pre-
vious translations, Yeats gladly lent himself, during a holiday in
Majorca, to this task. The Swami, knowing Sanskrit and English,
put the Upanishads into English which Yeats put into English. In
the introduction to this work, Yeats tells of A.E.’s interest in the
Upanishads and says of his friend something which has a wider
application: “He expressed in his ceaseless vague preoccupation
with the East a need and curiosity of our time.”

Though old and ill, Yeats undertook these labors not only to
satisfy his own curiosity and need but to assist young poets, who,
like Dante, needed their myth. Yeats’ dream of a school of Irish

poets finding their excitement in the U punish ads instead of in the
politics that Yeats deplored was not realized in his lifetime nor
may it be in ours. Of the generation after Yeats, James Joyce,
who once attended A.E.’s conventicle, made fun of Yeats’ the-
osophy in UlysseSy though yielding to none in his admiration of
the poet; and Sean O’Faolain, a younger man, regards Yeats as a
lost leader. Ignorant of theosophy, young English poets like
George Barker and Dylan Thomas prefer another kind of mad-
ness. Yeats himself, untrue to his ideals, devoted most of his last
poems to Irish politics and love.

Love suggests D. H. Lawrence, who, no less impatient with
Europe, faced Eastward in his turn. His original Methodism im-
paired by Darwin and Huxley, but his aspiration unconfined,
Lawrence also devised a private religion. * Because the West
seemed materialistic, rational, and, in a word, Western, Lawrence
made a cult of the primitive, the irrational, and the Eastern. To
him the East meant the primitive and the unintellectual, but, since
the East meant theosophy to him, his interpretation is not sur-
prising.

Between 1912 and 1915 Lawrence read Isis Unveiled and The
Secret Doctrine by Mme. Blavatsky, together with several works
by Annie Besant and by Rudolph Steiner, the German theoso-
phist. For a time he subscribed to The Occult Review. This liter-
ature, plus a little anthropology, formed the substance of the
religion which, preached in essay and novel, was intended to ex-
plain himself to himself and to save the world. Traces of
theosophy appear in “The Crown,” an apocalyptic essay Law-
rence wrote in 1915, but the ideas about the conflict of opposites
in the same essay came from those semi-Oriental early Greek
philosophers who also fascinated Yeats. The essays of Law-
rence’s later years, filled with casual references to Om, the Third
Eye, the ankh, the serpent with his tail in his mouth, and the
“Sanskrit joys of Purusha, Praahana, Kala,” show the extent of
his theosophical learning. From theosophy, distorted by an-
thropology, Lawrence gained his understanding of the Egyp-
tians, Hindus, and Etruscans who are rarely absent from the

186

thoughts of his fictional characters. As a theosophist, however,
Lawrence was even more eclectic than Yeats, being more of a
Dissenter perhaps. Rejecting reincarnation and Anima Mundi as
too abstract, Lawrence took from Mme. Blavatsky what he
found congenial. In this, of course, he is not unlike other the-
osophists.

Lawrence adored Atlantis, which although located underneath
a Western sea, has become, through the endeavors of Mme.
Blavatsky, an Eastern Utopia. What we consider Oriental today
or, indeed, what we consider Mexican, is but the corrupt tradi-
tion of Atlantis to which one must return for the real thing. In
this return Lawrence followed his leader, as the preface to his
Fantasia of the Unconscious ingenuously shows. Lawrence’s most
theosophical and also his best novel, The Plumed Serpent
(1926), deals with the quest for Atlantis through its Mexican
vestiges. Working through Aztec symbols, especially Quetzal-
coatl, the cult of Don Ramon in this novel attempts to revive the
West. Lawrence had not forgotten The Secret Doctrine , nor
was he indifferent to Blavatsky’s disciples. Among the anthropol-
ogists whom he consulted for this novel was Lewis Spence, au-
thority on Atlantis and Rosicrucian of Los Angeles.

In his later years, pursuing a more authentic East, Lawrence
read several of the Vedas, of which he liked the Rigveda best for
its air of primitive animism. His devotion to Siva may have been
increased by Coomaraswamy’s Dance of Sivay which he read and
liked. Lawrence also found an affinity in the Upanishads . One
who is more familiar with Lawrence than with the East will be
struck on looking into the Upanishads by their resemblance in
doctrine, rhetoric, and atmosphere to Lawrence’s essays and nov-
els. But, to put the horse before the cart (or proteron hysteron ),
the Upanishads resemble Lawrence because he resembled the
Upanishads .

As might be expected, he loved yoga, to which, in the preface
to Fantasia , he admits a debt. He could have learned something of
yoga from his friend Earl Brewster, who, although a Buddhist,
was not unfamiliar with Hinduism. Lawrence could also have
learned something of this discipline from the Upanishads , but
true to his spirit, he preferred a less reputable source. This was
The Apocalypse Unsealed (1910) by James M. Pryse, who had

is?

been one of Mme. Blavatsky’s twelve resident disciples. For a
time Pryse was a member of the Dublin Lodge along with Yeats
and A.E., but, responsive to the Westward course of empire and
of spirit, he soon departed for Los Angeles, where he is still in-
active. Pryse’s book is a theosophical application of yoga to the
Apocalypse of St. John, a perpetual favorite of the apocalyptic
mind. The account of the chakras in Lawrence’s Psychoanalysis
and the Unconscious is as near to Pryse as Pryse is to yoga. The
initiation of Don Cipriano and the spiritual exercises of Don Ra-
mon in The Plumed Serpent are based upon the initiation de-
scribed by Pryse. And Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake, is not
only Mme. Blavatsky’s serpent with tail in mouth but Pryse’s
Kundalini, the serpent coiled at the base of every yogi’s spine.
Like certain yogis, Lawrence was also able in this novel by put-
ting sex to a transcendental use to make it suitable for Puritans.
Apocalypse , Lawrence’s last effort to improve the West, is mod-
eled closely upon The Apocalypse Unsealed.

Lawrence’s popularity attests his appeal. As he found an af-
finity in the East, our age, seeking the transcendental and the
deep, has found an affinity in Lawrence. But unaware that much
of Lawrence is theosophical yoga or Blavatsky fictionized, his
readers can hardly be expected to proceed through Lawrence to
the East or, using the word in the sense of near-beer, even to the
near-East. Some of his literary disciples, however, have pene-
trated his meaning. Henry Miller, for example, the American
novelist who is even more romantic than his master, is a devoted
reader of Mme. Blavatsky.

Although they were inspired by much the same sort of thing
and for similar reasons, Yeats and Lawrence differ in all other
respects. Yeats was an artist first, an occultist second and for the
sake of art. Lawrence was an occultist first, an artist, if at all, for
the sake of doctrine. Lacking Yeats’ critical detachment and his
craft, Lawrence allowed what he knew of the East to increase his
romantic impatience with limits, including form. The effect of
the East, as of everything else, depends upon the hands into which
it falls. If they are shaping hands, the effect is art; if not, not.

1 88

Ill

Aldous Huxley, another of Lawrence’s disciples, came to the
Orient without benefit of Blavatsky. Science and the war had
prepared the world for his disgust, emptying it of meaning and
value. Huxley expressed his disgust in desperate, frivolous nov-
els, in which Yeats, reading them years later, found what he
called an almost Buddhistic hatred of the world. This hatred and a
suppressed yearning are, as we have seen, the customary prepa-
ration for a spiritual career. The religious and moral temper
which Huxley had concealed beneath his cynicism came to the
surface in Those Barren Leaves (1925), a novel in which a lead-
ing character, repenting his fashionable desperation, climbs a
mountain, discovers his soul, and communes with the universe.
This tentative, fictive flight prepared Huxley for actual flight in
Lawrence’s company. Upon their first meeting in 1915, though
attracted by Lawrence’s profundity, Huxley had been enabled by
youth and intelligence to resist conversion. But he succumbed to
Lawrence upon their second encounter in 1926. Ignorance of
theosophy and Lawrence’s silence about his sources permitted
Huxley to remain unaware of the Oriental character of Law-
rence’s thought. As the portrait of Lawrence in Point Counter
Point shows, his appeal was personal. Though never quite happy
about Lawrence’s obscurantism, for Huxley is a learned man, he
was pleased with the emotional relief which Lawrence offered to
the worldly and the wise. Then Lawrence died, taking his per-
sonality with him; and the disciple cooled. But he remained a
seeker. Prepared by Lawrence for spiritual expansion, but too
nice to yield to Blavatsky, Huxley found what he wanted at last
in Gerald Heard, her modern equivalent. Heard’s omniscience
won Huxley, who could never resist omniscience; and Heard had
profundity too. In 1935 master and disciple were active in Canon
Dick Sheppard’s Peace Pledge Union, which promoted a scheme
of non-violence like that of Gandhi and from equally Indian
premises.

The philosophy which Heard offered to Huxley’s desire, a
synthesis of Buddhism and Hinduism, is expounded in The Third
**::‘dlity (1937) and Painy Sex and Time (1939). In these tracts
Heard says that scientific materialism not only ignores the spirit

189

But promotes fear, greed, and violence, the sins of the Western
world. The only hope of salvation lies in Eastern transcenden-
talism, adapted to the West from the theory and practice of the
Vedantists and the Buddhists. The individual, and through him
society, can be saved by a diet of vegetables, by posture and exer-
cises for the spine, by deep breathing, and by systematic medi-
tation after the manner of the yogis, until, transcended, the self
unites with God. Tantric yoga shows how the energies of sex
may be used to enlarge the consciousness. The eightfold path of
Buddha and “concentration between the eyebrows” free the
spirit from the body and from time. The Sankara philosophy is
of help in a way that escapes me. By these means, under the di-
rection of a “Neo-Brahmin,” small monastic groups of the de-
vout will transcend their personalities and the world. Omnisci-
ence opened many books to Heard, but one of his principal debts
is to Irving Babbitt’s Dhammapaday which contains an excellent
account of Buddhistic meditation, its practice* and effect, together
with a defense of Buddha against the skeptics of the West, who,
after reading Babbitt’s earlier books, might be inclined to dismiss
Babbitt and Buddha as romantics. Babbitt’s essay on Buddha dif-
fers from the essays of Heard in sounding reasonable.

In his capacity of disciple Huxley repeated the ideas of Heard.
Ends and Means (1937) 1S Heard’s Third Morality under a differ-
ent title, in order to confuse the public, perhaps. The novels Hux-
ley has written since his conversion are also propaganda for
Heard’s Oriental synthesis. Eyeless in Gaza (1936) is the story of
Huxley’s conversion. Desperate, materialistic Anthony Beavis
(Huxley) meets Mr. Miller (Heard) who prescribes diet, exer-
cises for the spine, and meditation. Greatly improved, Beavis
joins a pacifist organization led by Miller and preaches non-vio-
lence to the materialists of London. Between sermons he medi-
tates in his closet, exclaiming “Peace, peace, peace,” as if he were
commencing a Upanishad. In After Many a Summer Dies the
Swan (1939) against a background of skeptics and materialists
Huxley projects the figure of Mr. Propter (or Gerald Heard),
who conducts in California a little Oriental cult of vegetarians
•and meditators living in separation from the world. In his garden
this Neo-Brahmin passes his time transcending personality or»d
time when he is not preaching Gerald Heard to the unbeliever.

190

In 1937 Huxley accompanied Heard to America. After investi-
gating telepathy in Carolina and Quakerism in Pennsylvania, in
search of corroboration, they retired to the neighborhood of Los
Angeles. There Huxley meditates and writes for the cinema.
There Heard meditates and writes detective stories under an-
other name in order to earn a living, for, despite his endeavors,
he is not yet independent of his body.

I owe my information about Huxley’s most recent state to Mr.
Thomas E. Barensfeld of the University of California in Los An-
geles. For the past year or two Huxley has been associated with
the Vedanta Society, which maintains in Hollywood a chapel re-
sembling, in its degree, the Taj Mahal. Here, to Aldous Huxley and
Miss Marion Davies, a fellow communicant, Swami Prabhavan-
anda of the Ramakrishna Mission expounds the Bhagavadgita on
Tuesdays, and on Thursdays the yoga aphorisms of Patanjali.
Thus instructed, Huxley wrote an enthusiastic Foreword to
Swami Nikhilananda’s Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), an in-
troduction to a system which, according to the prospectus, has
also pleased Bergson, Gandhi, and Irwin Edman. To Professor
Edman, for example, Ramakrishna seems “the real thing in meta-
physical mysticism.” The November-December, 1942, issue of
Swami Prabhavananda’s Veda?ita a?id the West , a periodical de-
voted to Ramakrishna, contains an excerpt from the Bhaga -
vadgita , meditations by two local Swamis, and a meditation
entitled “The Magical and the Spiritual” by Aldous Huxley. By
mortification of the intellect Huxley rises once more in this medi-
tation to Reality, from which he excludes as dangerous such psy-
chic phenomena as elementals, pixies, and table-rappings. In this
way he detaches himself not only from limits but also from the
neighboring Rosicrucians and theosophists, with whom the
Vedantists, though much less infra digy might be confounded.

The influence of Huxley and Heard may be detected, perhaps,
in the recent conversion of Christopher Isherwood, author of
two novels and collaborator in poetic plays with W. H. Auden.
Soon after his arrival in Los Angeles, Isherwood fell under the
power of Heard’s Swami, renounced literature, the movies, and
the world, and proceeded to meditate in the convenient desert
whence he emerges occasionally to assist the Swami in public
devotions. It is said in the magazine Horizon for January, 1944

191

that Isherwood is now little better than a hermit. The influence
of Heard and Huxley may also lie behind Somerset Maugham’s
recent preoccupation with yoga and the Hindu scriptures. In
The Razor's Edge , 1944 (a title taken from the Upanishads)
Maugham’s American hero is converted to Hinduism, gives up
his inherited capital, and returns from India to New York, where,
driving a taxi for his bread, he enlightens his fares. It would be
improper to conclude that Maugham shares these unearthly sen-
timents; for he refers to himself in this novel as “earthy” and he
lives, after all, in New York and the Carolinas and not in Holly-
wood.

The histories of Yeats, Lawrence, and Huxley illustrate a tend-
ency in our day not unlike the Transcendentalism of an earlier
day in New England. But these three men are only a small part
of the new transcendentalism, and the Oriental is only one of its
many aspects. Surrealism, which reveals its nature by its name, is
a more secular example of the same tendency. And the intro-
spective novel has produced the equivalent of religious medita-
tion. The Waves by Virginia Woolf, for example, ends with the
extinction of personal identity and a union with all things which
differs only in namelessness from that of the Buddhists and yogis.
All over America and England literary men have come to re-
semble James Joyce’s Mr. Bloom who, at one point in Ulysses,
ascended rapidly from Dublin “to the glory of the brightness at
an angle of forty-five degrees . . . like a shot off a shovel.”
These transcendentalists are not a group united by locality or
friendship like their predecessors in New England, but they have
been forced into a pattern by the times and by their romantic
aspiration. The reader will have noticed recurrent patterns in
these three exemplary histories, the pattern, for instance, of ma-
terialism attended with detestation and yearning and followed
by theosophy or% Hinduism. And the reader may also have no-
ticed the strange recurrence of Los Angeles. To that city Heard,
Huxley, and James M. Pryse, contriving to go East and West at
once, retired to meditate, and it was there that Mrs. Yeats re-
ceived the daemons. The attraction of this place for spiritual men
and even for spirits is plain. But I am not sure that I know what
it means.

19.

William Ernest Hocking

LIVING RELIGIONS
AND A WORLD FAITH

IF ONE were still able to travel by train from the New
Harbor of Dubrovnik to Serajevo, climbing noisily (and
smokily) up the mountain slopes bordering the fine estuary of
the Ombla, he would be aware of a swift change of cultural as
well as of physical climate. The Dalmatian coast bears every-
where the Roman and Venetian mark in architecture and reli-
gion; there are a few Greek Orthodox Churches and numerous
Jewish synagogues. But as one reaches Mostar he sees minarets
as well as steeples and domes. And at Serajevo it is evident that
the religion of Mohammed is a lively factor in the community.
Christianity, Judaism, Islam-three religions of Asiatic origin,
dominate the Balkan peninsula. At Spalato, Mestrovic’s gigantic
statue of Bishop Gregory set up in the ruins of the palace of
Diocletian symbolizes the almost complete submersion of the re-
ligious influence of classical antiquity, both Roman and Greek,
under these faiths from the East.

Except in point of proportion the story of the Balkans is re-
peated everywhere in Europe and America: whatever forms of
religion are alive among us ^e owe to Asia. We are less con-
scious of the presence of Islam than of Judaism and Christianity,
hardly at all aware of Hinduism. Many do not realize that there
are (or were) active Moslem missions in England (as at Woking
in Surrey), Germany, and France; and that besides the monumen-
tal mosque in Paris built to signalize the fact that France was a
great Moslem power, there are active mosques in Brooklyn and
Chicago; nor that Bahai is an offshoot of Islam, as the Vedanta

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movement with a dozen American centers is an offshoot of
Hinduism.

There are no religions indigenous to Europe and America
which compare with these religions from Asia either in their
present vitality or in their influence on our civilization. This fact
has sometimes been taken as a reproach against the religious origi-
nality of the Western world. Sometimes it has been taken as an
argument that religion itself is a peculiar Oriental export, not
really suited to our mentality, which we should do well to lay
aside quietly, with all due gratitude for its historic services.

To comment on the latter point first, it is not at all certain
that these historic services have been finished. What they amount
to, in sum, is supplying the fecundity and the backbone for all
that we call “Western civilization.” This has been chiefly the
work of Christianity. The Christian version of Roman-Stoic law,
eked out by canon law, and administered by officers of the
church, tided Europe over its darker hours of disorder, and laid
the foundation for all civil law in Europe. The common law of
England and America is an offspring of Anglo-Saxon conscience
under the guidance of the church. The whole conception of the
rights of man is directly traceable to Christian conceptions of hu-
man nature, and with that, all we call individualism, liberalism,
democracy in the modern sense. The art of Europe, including
architecture, music, painting, sculpture, was shaped by the me-
dieval church; likewise its literature and philosophy. And as for
its science, which we are inclined to think of as the result of a
revolt against religious authority, and especially as one point
which sets us off from everything Oriental— the whole develop-
ment of scientific method in the seventeenth century, with its
spirit of revolt— not against religion nor Christianity but against
the authority of Aristotle and the Bible in matters of logic and
science, is demonstrably an application of Christian ethics to the
study of Nature, and was carried on by men who regarded them-
selves as more religious than those who criticized them. No his-
torian can explain why and how what we call the modern era
arose in Europe and America and nowhere else, who does not
recognize the religion of Europe and America as one of the par-
ents of that era.

And though we owe so much to Christianity, it is not at all

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clear that we yet know what it means. It still seems strange to us
—otherworldly, remote, extravagant, impractical— in short ‘Orien-
tal.’ Probably the Orient does in fact understand it better than
we do. This means that we claim too much when we say we have
taken our religion from the East: it has not yet been completely
taken. We still have to learn religion from Asia, both in terms of
the living religions which are there, and in terms of Asiatic ver-
sions of Christianity. Certainly, the learning business has to go
in both directions; but our own culture will lack catholicity,
poise, and security until we know what we have to do with re-
ligion in an age which is rightly committed to the humanistic
spirit and the technology which is the gift of science.

As to the other matter— that we ought to be ashamed to take
our religion from Asia— there are two things to be said. First, that
religion is always original or nothing: nobody can use the re-
ligion of anybody else but himself. Whatever he accepts by way
of suggestion or teaching from outside has to become his own
conviction before it can do him any good. And as he appropri-
ates it, he remolds it and produces his own version, even when
he accepts it most humbly as the authoritative word of God.
Second, the Western world is not behind in religious fecundity.
Every ethnic region of Europe has produced its religious forms,
still discernible in the undercurrents of folklore. There have
been magnificent pantheons among them, from the urbane Olym-
pians of Greece to the stormy Aesir, denizens of Asgard (from
two of whom, Odin and Thor, we derive the words Wednes-
day and Thursday— our weekday names remaining obstinately
pagan). And with these there have come splendid poetic litera-
tures, mythologies, theologies, and parable-wisdoms. There have
not been lacking efforts to resuscitate some of these buried cities
of the spirit or to recover for use some of their ideas. Lutoslaw-
ski,1 for example, labored over the doctrine of transmigration as
found in the Polish epics in order to show that it was an improve-
ment on either the Hindu doctrine, associated with Karma, or
Plato’s picture of rebirth. But these European religions remain
local reminiscences, held in the subconscious mold of peasant
usages or absorbed into the framework of the dominant faith.
Why, then, have the great Asiatic religions taken their place?
The fact, I believe, is neither accidental nor humiliating: it is an

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inevitable consequence of the nature of religion and its history. I
shall try to make this evident.

Religion is man’s practical dealing with the enduring auspices
of his destiny, his communion with what is eternal and total in
his world, conceived as a source of direction to right living. By
definition, religion reached toward what is universally true, that
which concerns all men alike, no matter of what place, color, sex,
race, or nation. Its nature is, therefore, to unite men in the con-
sciousness of a common lot and obligation. Wherever it arises,
and however it expresses itself, its whole meaning is to find that
one reality and that one law which are valid for all mankind. At
the same time, every religion, having its local origins, dealing
with the less tangible sides of the world, having to use symbols,
metaphors, and appeals rather than market-iiteralities, is steeped
in localism. Belonging as it does to the working balance of a
culture, it grows with the given culture, and the early religions
naturally observe the limits drawn by language and political con-
trol. It is this paradoxical union of the local and the universal by
which we have to understand the strange facts of religious history
and dominance.

The strain between the local and the universal is relieved by
the fact that the worshiper is usually unaware of the local qual-
ity of his religion. The Arab does not think of his religion as
Arabian: it is his way of dealing with Allah, who, in his view, is
the God of all men: so far from being felt as local, it is his way
of escaping from localism. But he has something specific to do
about his faith; he must make his prayers, and in doing so, orient
his prayer-rug toward Mecca. He may well be wholly uncon-
scious that in tethering his religion to a particular point in space,
he has thereby separated himself from— let us say, a Japanese for
whom a certain brass plate in a temple near Nara marks the spot
where Amaterasu Omikami began the creation of the world. It
is not the Arab but the outsider who finds that this Arab’s re-
ligion has an “Oriental” flavor, or if he the outsider is a connois-
seur, an Arab flavor, racy with the grandeur and masculinity of
the imagination of the great peninsula.

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And let us notice, too, that whatever the strain may be be-
tween the local and the universal, it does not amount to a contra-
diction. No religion is more local than Hinduism: it is steeped in
the atmosphere of the land whose name it insists on keeping: it
is a vast tree with a thousand branches and a thousand roots, al-
most oppressive to the European- American taste by the exuber-
ance of its imagery and the fruitiness of its sense of life. Yet it is
just Hinduism which distills itself into the most ethereal of all
essences: its Brahman, the absolute being, is devoid of all describ-
able attributes, has no temples, is not worshiped,* stands one
might say for a sort of dark North Pole in the night sky of the
mind. It is as if Hinduism, as it strove to give an exact account of
its faith, derived from its soil enough energy to reject every
trace of the soil, every trace of the earth itself and of human life,
everything that could serve as an identifying mark, and in the
guise of Vedanta spread everywhere like a religious ether, per-
vasive and nonresistant.

This case of Hinduism suggests what happens to a religion as
it becomes thoughtful. It becomes aware that its truth has no
national boundaries, and on that ground, it begins to travel.

It is likely to be handicapped in this undertaking by the fact
that a religion does not consist of truth alone; if it did, the prob-
lem of a world faith might be much easier. A religion is always
a truth (embodied in a creed), a ritual, and a code. The moral
code is likely, in early stages, to embody much of the common
law of the community and therefore to be so characteristic* as
not to be applicable to other groups: the Hindu sacred law {The
Book of Manu ) could not be practiced in China. And as for the
ritual, these symbolic observances belong so much to the special
histories and feelings of the groups in which they arise that they
are with difficulty so much as understood by others. Primitive
peoples hide their rituals, not because they are ashamed of them,
but because they do not wish to expose what is so closely bound
up with their own feelings to an unsympathetic eye: early ritual
is inherently private to its group— which is one reason of course
for the exceptional curiosity it awakens in anthropologists and
others. It is for this reason that a great Hindu like Gandhi, whose
creed is in many respects coincident with Christianity, has no
inclination to identify himself with Christianity. When he says

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that God has set his lot in India and that he must remain Hindu,
he means not that his beliefs are different but that his religion
is inseparable from the code, the ritual, and the sacred literature
of his people (including their development and reform), and
cannot lightly migrate with the universal scope of their thought.
The name Rama is to him the most friendly and homely name
of God.

Now Gandhi is certainly right about the localism of the whole
concrete working of a religion: it has to have roots in the place
it lives in. But if this were the last word, we Americans neither
ought to be nor could be using Asiatic religions. God knows
what religion we would have— possibly Druidism, if we have a
Celtic rill in our veins! For a migratory people, localism presents
difficulties, and certainly cannot be the determining factor. But
there is a state at which religion itself becomes migratory; and
this stage was reached in India itself. For Buddhism is an Indian
product, and Buddhism is inherently a traveling religion. By its
own view of its teaching it was incapable of staying at home; and
its wandering saved its life, for after a time it died out in India,
and lived onlv in its newer homes— Burma, Ceylon, Siam, Af-
ghanistan, Tibet, China, Japan. Christianity likewise almost
abandoned Palestine, spreading to the north and west. Islam, the
third among the great traveling religions, has still its central
hearth in Arabia and Palestine, but its great mass of adherents
lie across southern Asia and northern Africa. What is the peculiar
point of view of the traveling religions?

In my judgment it is a matter of religious maturity. It is a
phase which was bound to come with full religious self-con-
sciousness, favored by a long history of civilization. (We may
leave Islam aside for the moment, since Mohammed was largely
influenced by Judaism and Christianity as he met them in Arabia,
the other “religions of the Book” as he called them.) The simple
reason why we are all using Asiatic religions is that Asia, having
a longer consecutive religious history, and producing the men of
genius who were able to read the meaning of this history, reached
this stage first. What they did was so well conceived that there is
no more reason for rejecting it— in the interest of a specious origi-
nality—than there would be for rejecting the alphabet or the
multiplication table as “Oriental” because these too were first

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elaborated in Asia. Every part of the world has its indigenous
religion; but only in Asia did the local cult have time to come to
full flower and send its seeds, detached from the mother plant,
to the four winds.

The local religions of Europe have not traveled, because they
were not ready to travel when the era of traveling was on. The
Germanic and Scandinavian cults had not been ripened by that
wide political experience which plays its part in tempering and
saddening the human spirit. Not only were they unchastened
and unremorseful with respect to their own inherent powers of
right living, they had not encountered that experience of politi-
cal disillusionment which could make a mental distinction be-
tween ‘the world’ and ‘the spirit,’ or between ‘the realm of ap-
pearance’ and ‘the realm of true being.’ In brief, the problem of
evil, as an accompaniment of high political civilization, could
not so much as be formulated by these European cults: they
were exuberant, thoughtless, and aggressive; like the Wends of
whom Carlyle wrote, their peoples had to be “damped down into
Christianity.” And if something was extinguished in them— as no
doubt it was— they endured the chastening because there was
opened to them, at the same moment, a whole new dimension of
moral experience which they were able to recognize— not as Asi-
atic—but as their own. The West-bound religion of Asia en-
gulfed them only because it showed them their own destiny in
the concrete. Those who wish to decry Christianity in Europe
call it an ‘Oriental religion.’ Those in Asia who wish to decry
the Christianity which Europe and America have at times tried
to bring back to it have sometimes called it a ‘Western religion.’
Very likely it is both, in various details; since a much-traveled
religion, like a much-traveled man, will bear traces of all the re-
gions in which he has been at home. But in its original out-push it
was neither; it intended to be simply “the way” for men every-
where; its founder never heard the word “Christian”; he con-
sidered himself a Jew, calling for a reform or a reconception of
the Jewish faith such as would shake off its local restrictions.
Five hundred years earlier a young Indian, Siddhartha, whom
we now call “The Buddha” or “The Enlightened One,” had un-
dertaken a similar liberation of the local religion of his people.
He offered his “way” (under the name of the Noble or Aryan

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Eightfold-Path) not to Indians but to mankind. He never heard
the word Buddhism. These religions traveled because they had
to: having reached self-consciousness about what a religion has
to do, a local boundary became a self-contradiction.

They did not as a rule spread automatically, as science has
done, throughout human history, but by propaganda. Of each
it is said that the founder “sent forth” disciples to preach the
message— a new function in the life of religion. The words at-
tributed to Buddha are these:

“Go, ye Bhikkus, for the weal of many, for the enlight-
enment of gods and of men; go not two together; let your
abode be the shade of trees, your food what is given
you . .

Whether words like these were actually uttered is less impor-
tant than the fact that they expressed what the original groups
of believers thought of their duties and acted on. These religions
had reached the traveling-point, as water reaches the boiling-
point. I suggest that we now test this theory by examining some
of the significant circumstances attending the origins of the great
traveling faiths.

First note the circumstances that these religions (again except-
ing Islam) arose within a limited period of world history— let us
say between the eighth century b.c. and our era. The eighth cen-
tury we may take as the period of the great Hebrew prophets
who, considering Jehovah as god of the whole earth, laid the
foundations for present-day Judaism. About this time, India’s for-
ests were yielding an esoteric wisdom, Aranyakas and Upani-
shads, drawing from the robust polytheism of the Vedas a strict
and abstract monism, the basis of the Vedanta. Here, in the sixth
and fifth centuries b.c. Buddha appeared (562-482 perhaps). And
almost precisely contemporary with him, Confucius in China
(550-478); while Lao Tze, founder of Taoism, whose date is un-
certain, may have been an older contemporary of both.. About
the same time, various so-called mystery religions in the Near
East and in Greece, symptomatic of the religious unrest of the
era, developed traveling propensities. Socrates and Plato (fourth

200

and third centuries b.c.) were not unrelated to the religious con-
cerns of the time. In Palestine, the hill country of Judaea and
Galilee offered retreats for reflective spirits, aside from the main
travel routes yet not far from them; its rabbis were called phi-
losophers by the Greeks. Alexander paid it little heed, though his
teacher, Aristotle, was said to have conversed with one of these
wise men from the hills. But when Rome absorbed the small
land the stage was set whereby a local disturbance, started by a
dreamer from Galilee, could become a world movement.

The greater traveling religions are all products of religious re-
volt or reform; all of them shake off as unessential some of the
local characters of the traditional religion of their several re-
gions; all of them emphasize the universal aspect of religion. All
of them make religion an individual matter, and an inward mat-
ter, more concerned with motives than with visible conduct. As
revolts, they had to be the work of outstanding personalities.
And partly on this account they have all come to be identified
by the names or titles of their founders; they are “founded” re-
ligions, in contrast to the great local background of religious
tradition whose authorship (generally speaking) is as little
known as the authorship of the several languages. To identify a
religion as “the religion of the Buddha” or “the religion of the
Christ” or “the religion of the Prophet” does indeed introduce a
new localism, a note of partisanship which promises much future
trouble in the way of the world faith; but it does, at least, set the
religion in question free from the older localism of habitat or race
or people.

Was this striking set of similarities among the traveling reli-
gions a coincidence, or was there something like a world situa-
tion to which these several movements were responses? One
suspects that the latter is the case, because no matter how great
the genius of a prophet, he can start no historic movement unless
the minds of men are asking the questions to which he offers
the answers.

Perhaps the world situation was this— that men began to be
aware that there is a ‘world.’ It was a period in which contact,
commerce, and conquest within the area of Asia, Egypt, and
Greece were destroying cultural isolation without destroying
cultures. The ‘world’ began to be thought of as a cultural plural-

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ism, in which it was no longer possible for each one, having
grown strong in solitude, to think of itself as the hearth of man-
kind, the rest being in peripheral twilight as ‘barbarian’ or ‘gen-
tile.’ What was taking place was the Copernican revolution of
the cultural universe; the center could no longer be securely lo-
cated at home! When Rome came, it merely finished what had
been going on: to all but Rome itself, the political disasters im-
plied by the Roman conquests toppled the easy mental suprema-
cies of all local deities. Local religion had begun to be under
suspicion.

More than this: individual men were forced to realize that
they could not find complete human satisfaction any longer in
their careers as citizens of their own communities. Standing, in
the social world, was full of accident and injustice; the problem
of happiness or of ‘salvation’ could not be solved within the hu-
man social or political order. Religion, which had hitherto gone
along with group life, inspiring its codes and sanctioning its loy-
alties, begins to pull apart from politics and address itself to the
individual soul. The other world becomes important, and immor-
tality a desired prospect, if there is any way to secure it. The
career of the soul becomes the dominant theme of the religious
‘way.’

This disaffection from the actual world and its natural ambi-
tions does not need to go to the extent of despair, or what Gil-
bert Murray calls “loss of nerve,” in order to present religion with
its primary problem, that of the meaning of life. The distinction
between the present world and another world is itself a source of
profound unhappiness. How can a man wean away his desires
and interests from the world in which he must act? He does not
do so unless he is compelled to, not merely by circumstances, but
by his thinking which convinces him that the separation has to be
madey alike whether he is personally fortunate or unfortunate:
the world if human experience is simply not capable of satisfy-
ing the demands of the human soul. Things at their best are finite
and man is infinite; this is the root of the ‘problem of evil’ which
religion now faces in its full scope.

The great traveling religions are, accordingly, religions of ‘sal-
vation.’ Each gives its own analysis of the human dilemma; each
offers its own recipe for cure; each gives its teaching as to what

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men ought to hope for, here and hereafter. These answers are di-
verse, and this constitutes a part of the problem of the world
faith of the future. We shall speak of these differences. For the
moment we have been concerned simply to see why religion,
arriving at a certain maturity in Asia, naturally came to Europe
and America from that source.

At the same time, we can understand why certain other reli-
gious movements of the same period did not have the same tend-
ency to universal spread. The Confucian world view had its
religious elements; but Confucius was a reformer in this field only
in the sense that, leaning against the superstition of his time, he
selected and simplified its working elements, and confronted the
rest with a prudent pragmatism. For him the working element of
religion was a belief in Heaven (Tien) as an appointer of human
destiny; everyman had his task, and was bound to qualify himself
to fulfil it. For the ordinary conduct of life, Confucius’ genius
was that of clarifying usage, with great loyalty to tradition, and
much sensitiveness of conscience. He has given us one of the
great religious sayings of all time: “He who offends the gods has
no one to whom he can pray ’’—the self-created moral solitude of
the man who holds himself able to defy duty. There was suffi-
cient universality in the Confucian outlook to permit its spread
to Korea and Japan; but China was, in the period we have de-
scribed, still somewhat apart from the main current of Asiatic
thought. Confucius reminds us in many mays of Socrates, in his
concern for definitions of ethical ideas, and his indisposition to
speculate. But through Socrates and Plato, the career of Greek
religious thought took a directly opposite turn, emptying itself
almost wholly into philosophy. Now philosophy, like mathe-
matics, is universal by its nature, and neither requires nor can
use the methods of preaching and propaganda. Socrates remained
the inspiration of various schools of classical thought, especially
of the Stoics; but he founded no community, and his thought en-
tered namelessly into the body of Platonism, and thus of Western
theology.

Judaism toward the beginning of our era was led into the way
of spreading by propaganda. Its own dispersed situation, partly
compelled and partly chosen, favored this type of activity. But
the impulse subsided in favor of another method of advance. The

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true religion must indeed become the religion of all men; but
this may occur either by transmission or by a gathering in. For
Judaism the sense of the community on a family pattern was so
strong as to decide the issue for the second type. Judaism was not
to be given broadcast to the world, but the world was to be ab-
sorbed, so far as it could become worthy, within the Jewish com-
munity. The appropriate ceremony of acceptance, involving
circumcision, resembled a ceremony of adoption. Judaism may
thus be included among the traveling religions; but its mode of
travel being corporate, its spread is at present limited to the
multiplication of the community under its Law.2

Ill

I said that the answers given by the great religions to the prob-
lem of man’s suffering and moral misery in the best of civiliza-
tions were diverse. It will be sufficient to illustrate this point if
we contrast the answers given by Buddhism and Christianity.

To Buddha, the outstanding defect of human life is suffering,
to Christ it is moral aimlessness. Buddhism accordingly under-
takes to save men from suffering;* Christianity to save them from
“lostness.” Buddha finds the escape from suffering in cutting the
root of desire. His “Noble Fourfold Truth” runs in substance as
follows:

Life in all its aspects is suffering;

The cause of suffering is the root of all desire, which is
the craving for individual existence and that separateness
from others implied by individual life;

The cure of suffering must therefore be the extirpation
of that root, the overcoming of the craving to be, as a
separate entity.

The way to achieve this cure (the Noble Eightfold
Path) is neither asceticism nor indulgence, but a middle
path, in which a union of activity with periods of medita-
tion works steadily to the disenchantment which is En-
lightenment and Nirvana-eternal peace, a goal which may
be attained while one yet lives.

Christ finds the cure for moral lostness in nothing short of a re-

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birth, in which the straggling affections of secular human nature
are unified in a dominant affection, a love of God and neighbor
which brings desire and ambition to heel without killing them
off. For both Christ and Buddha, the important thing about any
human being is not what he does but what he cares about; both
have long anticipated the psychiatry of today by showing that
‘integration’ or peace can only come about by a rulership of
natural desire under a single principle which puts first things
first. But Buddha could not say “Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness,” for to Buddha there was no God in
the usual sense— there was only the inexorable law of Karma
(which carried over an uncured desire into another spell of ex-
istence and hence of more suffering) and the equally infallible
law, his own discovery, of the escape from Karma, and therefore
from further ‘existence.’ By the terms of his problem, the hope
held out to men might indeed be called an eternal life, but not
an eternal ‘existence,’ rather an eternity of unseparateness, the
overcoming of individuality, Nirvana, the end of striving. For
Christ the hope held out to men was also eternal life, but in a
positive sense of personal continuance and effect; it took the
vague form of an invitation to membership in a “Kingdom of
God,” an inner cure of the affections and an outer cure of human
history, a long work like the slow leavening of an inert lump— at
any rate, something to do.

It is easy to draw up handsome oppositions between these two
teachings, and say that Buddha’s goal is negative, Christ’s is posi-
tive; Buddha’s attitude toward life is pessimistic, Christ’s opti-
mistic; Buddha solaces the bewildered individual by getting him
to resign all individual claim on life-satisfaction, Christ by making
him individually precious in the sight of God, and a co-operator
in a divine work. But these differences do not stand in stark con-
trast as the two systems are more fully understood; since the life
of Buddha and his disciples, like that of Jesus, was one of active
endeavor for the good of men. And the later history of Buddhism
qualified many of the tenets of the early preaching. It is to be
noticed, further, that Buddha and Christ were not asking pre-
cisely the same question, and hence their answers cannot be di-
rectly compared. Christ was not concerned for the cure of
suffering; he tried to get men to face the certainty of ‘tribulation’

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with joy. Buddha was not concerned with the category of sin; he
was rather a psychologist who inquired how man might train
himself out of his earth-bound impulsiveness through a sort of
sublimation. Hence many of the observations of each might be
accepted by the other, within their diverse frame. The valid
comparison of Buddhism and Christianity, though there have
been many attempts, has yet to be worked out. Especially must
it be remembered that Buddhism, in the forms it assumed in
China and Japan, taught that every man participates in the “Bud-
dha nature,” and that his chief task is to realize that devotion to
his kind, that superiority to selfishness, that power which comes
from inner control, which were characteristic of the great sage.
In this respect, Buddhism has dignified the conception of the hu-
man individual for Asia, as Christianity has done in the West.

But when all is said, the world views are surely not identical.
The one is personal, the other impersonal; the one lives in a uni-
verse whose reality is moral will, the other in a universe whose
reality is moral law; the one is aggressive, the other pacific— ex-
cept, we must add, in Japan, where Buddhism long ago, in two of
its sects, acquired a militant flavor. The ultimate world faith,
therefore, will have to be one in which these differences must be
resolved.

We have, then, a group of religions each of which accepts the
responsibility of spreading its way of life to all men. Arising in
widely separated centers and moving in different directions,
they have in some measure divided the world among themselves,
no one of them being effectively universal. The problem of a
world faith will raise the practical question of the relations of
these religions to one another, and to the local religions which
they meet in the course of their expansion.

Nowhere is there a religious vacuum into which the migrant
can move. Buddhism encounters Confucianism and Taoism in
China, Confucianism and Shinto in Japan. But it came rather as
a supplement than as a contestant. Confucianism had no dogmas
regarding the other world and the career of the soul after death
which it cared to oppose to the new doctrine, rich with meta-
physical analysis and imaginative tapestry, supported by vast
tomes of esoteric wisdom, and bringing to the human scene a

206

new sense of divine compassion and of moral appeal to the Bud-
dha nature in each one. Buddhism in China released a great wealth
of artistic genius, giving it new themes in architecture, painting,
sculpture. But chiefly it dignified human life by making it, in its
inner struggle with suffering and desire, the central theme of
the meaning of the cosmic process. A Chinese could thus be a
good Confucianist and a good Buddhist at the same time. There
was of course a silent competition on the plane of subsistence;
for an organization must have an economic basis: what is given
to Taoist priests cannot be given to Buddhist monks. But on the
religious plane, there was room for all.

Christianity has been as a rule more belligerent toward the lo-
cal religions. Professing to supply all the religious needs of man-
kind, it has called for singleness of allegiance. Buddhism in China
presented the paradox of a religion with no God and at the same
time with many divine figures, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and saints.
A multiform system can flexibly add to its number or find cross-
identities, whereas a monotheism such as Christianity or Islam
must set itself against the whole apparatus of polytheistic wor-
ship, especially the images of the gods. The march of Christianity
has therefore been a demand for Either-Or decisions; the temples
and idols of the “heathen” have had to fall. But here also the con-
flict has not extended to the ground-level of the local structure.
The tenacity of folk-custom and festival has led to many local
amalgamations, and the sagacity especially of the Catholic mis-
sionaries has seen possibilities of conserving rather than destroy-
ing many a local observance within the body of the new faith.
Hence the Christianities of the German forests, the Druid coun-
tries, the Mexican mountains, the old Spanish Southwest are
markedly different in temper: they are variations on a common
theme.

In principle, since religion must be both local and universal,
there should always be the possibility of uniting the mature, self-
conscious superstructure of the traveling religion with elements
of code and rite which belong to local feeling and history. But
the problem is in each case a special one, since codes and rites are
not separable from creeds; and the union, whatever it may be,
must be natural and coherent, not an eclectic patchwork.

207

But the major problem of world faith arises when the great
traveling religions encounter one another.

It belongs to the accidents of history that Buddhism and Chris-
tianity are themselves the result of a slow selection among various
movements of similar nature— Buddhism and Jainism rising to-
gether in India; Christianity, Orphism, Mithraism, and other cults
finding themselves together in the Empire. But these survivors,
spreading in opposite directions, did not encounter one another,
so far as we know, for several centuries; and then understood so
little of one another that a romanticized Buddha, under the name
of Josaphat, an Indian prince who in the tale was converted by
the monk Barlaam, was innocently canonized by the Christian
Church, both Byzantine and Roman (though later dropped by
the Roman church)! In point of fact, their teachings are very
unlike, and Buddha (who died about 480 b.c.) had he met the
monk Barlaam, would have been from the monk’s point of view
sadly in need of conversion, and vice versa. %

It belongs also to the accidents of history that Buddhism in its
eastward progress encountered no other traveling faith. Its exten-
sion was pacific. Pandit Das Gupta’s statement, at the opening of
the new Buddhist temple at Sarnath, to the effect that Buddhism
had never used force, nor inspired the use of force in its behalf,
is well justified. He drew a damaging contrast between this his-
tory and that of Christianity. The early expansion of Islam
brought it into Christian territory, in the Near East— Damascus,
Jerusalem, Constantinople, the Balkans, Egypt, North Africa,
Spain. Islam had its own methods of tolerating the presence of
Christians in its precincts, as witness the division of the great
church of Saint John at Damascus into two parts, the Christians
using one half, while the other was used as a mosque! But the is-
sue of ownership of the “sphere of influence” between these
two religions was determined by the sword; and the political ele-
ment in the establishment of Christianity in Europe and the Near
East is one of the least creditable chapters of religious history.
It has to be remembered, however, that from the fourth century
onward Christianity had become identified with the maintenance
of public law in Europe, tiding over a period in which secular
authority was in confusion, and that it had created a “Christian”
Europe largely through its power over the sources of legislation

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and teaching. Likewise for Islam, though to an even higher de-
gree, the religion was at the same time a code of law and a gov-
ernment. For neither religion, during the centuries of Islamic
growth, was it possible to separate church and state. With this
consolidation of authority, a given territory had to be either
Moslem or Christian; and the matter could not be settled by
either prayer or philosophy.

We have now reached a point in the evolution of both poli-
tics and religion at which a degree of mutual independence is
seen to be necessary to the health of both. Religion must influence
law, if it is of any value at all. And government must have its
religious presuppositions. But when they are united as organiza-
tions, religion is corrupted by patronage, the “extension of the
faith” becomes an undercover pretext for the extension of em-
pire, politics loses the correction of an independent moral
judgment, and the relations between nations lose the tempering
influence of a religion which is beyond every state, because it is
effectively universal. We have not yet realized this ideal of mu-
tuality and detachment between church and state; but we are
sufficiently advanced toward it, so that the relations between the
great faiths will henceforth be determined more by persuasion,
on the ground of intrinsic merit, than by the political complex-
ion of the world— assuming that the world of tomorrow will al-
low the free intercourse of faiths, and the free play of thought
in regard to them.

Meanwhile, we have three or four promising aspirants for the
position of world religion. It is hardly correct to call them com-
petitors, for the impulse to spread is not a matter either of self-
interest or of pride— though these motives creep into every
man-staffed large-scale enterprise— but of duty in the meeting of
human need. And since it is the consumer and not the promoter
who, in the end, determines whether the need is met, whatever
rivalry there is should be of the most frank and generous charac-
ter, like the rivalry of physicians in the cure of disease. The
presence of these many aspirants is itself an anomaly; if the
plurality were acquiesced in, that would be equivalent to saying
that there is no world religion at all, and is to be none such, but
only a group of differing faiths having no way to settle their

20Q

differences, since each appeals not to reason nor to experience
but to the undebatable and uncompromisable finalities of revela-
tion.

On the other hand, the magnitude of the field of dominance
of each of the great religions is so great that we must accord to
each of them a large measure of success in satisfying the religious
craving of men; no other factor could have maintained them over
so long a period. We cannot, then, be dealing with three false-
hoods and one verity— one revealed and necessary way, and three
works of the devil— with the fateful problem in hand of recog-
nizing the true light; what we have is a variety of versions of
truth, struggling through media of human expression, vagary,
conceit, superstition— with the problem in hand of recognizing
and releasing the essence of the matter, and with the large prob-
ability that each of the group will have its own unique contribu-
tion to that essence.

There are now two questions before us. What are the ele-
ments of agreement among these several aspirants? What are the
outstanding differences, and what processes are at work to re-
solve them?

A certain amount of agreement seems implied in the common
circumstances of origin of the traveling faiths. All religion ac-
cepts the reality of an invisible order of being which in some way
both commands and satisfies the root-awareness of life. It implies
belief in the extra-natural, which usually takes shape as a belief
in divine personal beings. All the mature religions recognize in
the human individual a ‘soul/ that is to say, a phase of the self
deeper than the current phase of conversation and the day’s
work, reflecting on and guiding the current excursions in view of
the total picture of destiny: the soul is the self in its dealings
with the whole, and therefore with the extra-natural world as
well as the natural. All the traveling religions see and teach that
the soul is in peril, life being an opportunity which may be
missed. They teach that the obvious world attracts and blinds the
vision so that spiritual things become obscure, and life runs to
frustration. They all offer cure, and guidance to what we may
call the cosmic success. All of them propose a code of life, which

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is in part a condition of the cure; and all of them, whatever their
other precepts, include in the code a requirement of good will
toward the fellow man, and a degree of detachment from the
pressures of physical desire and greed and social ambition.

To the extent of this agreement, we may say that a world faith
already exists. This does not imply that all the world assents to
the items in which all the religions agree. The advance of science
and of positivistic logic has carried with it a wide swath of ne-
gation of the first assertion of all religion, the invisible order as
a moral order. To this wholly secular and this-worldly temper,
all religion is 'Oriental’ in the sense that it assigns reality to some-
thing not ‘verifiable’ by physical observation. This secularism
now pervades the Orient, and in order to burn off that religious
excess we call superstition proposes to burn off religion itself; it
aims to reclaim for pressing mundane business the energy drafted
off into the fruitless catalepsies of the mystic. If there is sound-
ness in religion it will accept the ordeal, learn its lessons, and hold
to what it perceives, seeing that science itself is an extra-natural
structure of the soul, responding partially to a demand of the cos-
mos for truth. The truth about tangible things is not itself a
tangible thing; nor is the truth about perishable things itself per-
ishable. To Gandhi, Truth and God are interchangeable terms,
and the scientist has but to become more fully self-conscious to
see that he also is a worshiper. We need not therefore make
secularism an exception to our statement that a world faith al-
ready exists.

All the great religions further agree that the soul has a career
not limited to the physical life of man; they have their pictures
of continuance or of supplementation. The notion of immortal-
ity, once vivid and near, burns dim today; but the concern it
stands for, as a part of the problem of the meaning of life, is even
more insistent as our noble social orders reveal their insecurity.

They agree also on another matter, and one which becomes
the kernel of disagreement: all give a unique religious position to
their founders. The names of Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed,
become the party-signs of religious cleavage, and present the
most refractory obstacles to mutual understanding. They incor-
porate in themselves the contemporary problem of world faith
in its sharpest form. To many minds, this represents the crown-

21 i

ing perversity of the ecclesiastical nostrumizing of religion, and
provokes a disposition to reach a common faith, as Professor
Dewey does, by discarding once for all the entire specialized ap-
paratus of the religious organizations. My belief is, however, that
there is a reason for the apparent perversity, and that we shall
move ahead toward religious understanding far faster if we in-
quire why it is that the great faiths all take this turn.

We may profitably remember that there have been repeated
attempts in history to bring men together on the basis of what
they already agree upon, discarding their points of difference, as
though differences were less important than agreements, only to
discover once more that likenesses are abstractions, and are never
enough by themselves to constitute a living organism. Why,
then, do the traveling religions give a special divine status to their
founders?

. v

We may approach the answer to our question by asking an-
other. Why do men make holidays of the anniversaries of the
advent of an idea? If an idea is true and valuable, it has no mark
of time and place about it: it belongs by its nature to all minds
who can apprehend it. The announcers of important ideas may
not wish to be remembered in connection with the ideas— and
most of them have not been— yet science itself strangely rebels
against the impersonality of its product, attaches Napier’s name
to a set of logarithms, Newton’s to certain laws of motion, and
a motley array of personal roots to the names of various species
of plants and animals. This impulse signalizes the fact that how-
ever timeless an idea may be, it is only ‘realized’ when it is bom
in a time-occupied mind. And in proportion to the scope of the
idea will men make holidays of such dates of birth. The “Noble
Fourfold Truth” would on this score always be Buddha’s doc-
trine. The “Ideas” of Plato have ceased to be merely platonic
beings, since they are forever Platonic. Time makes a time-festi-
val of its capture of the eternal. That is the beginning.

Buddh Gaya, the reputed scene of Buddha’s Enlightenment,
has long been a holy place for Buddhist visitors. As late as 1931
a temple was opened at Samath, near Benares, at the site of the
ancient Deer Park where the story places the scene of Buddha’s

212

First Sermon. Buddha himself taught the doctrine of non-perma-
nence, non-God-substance, non-soul-substance, and the timeless
peace of Nirvana as his own portion; contrary to the spirit of his
own thought, he has become an object of personal devotion, in
the course of the time-changes which his doctrine has suffered.
The Buddha-principle is hardly separable from the Buddha-
image. The Buddhist initiate professes, “I take refuge in the Bud-
dha.” In much the same way, with careful avoidance of any
deification of Mohammed, Islam makes its confession of faith:
“There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.”
This is not intended to be mere grateful reminiscence; it could
not on that ground alone enter into the creed.

We come nearer to the secret when we recall that the found-
ers were not merely seers and thinkers but teachers, planting
their ideas in living minds as the best way, perhaps the only way,
of securing their continuance. They were concerned to make
their ideas forces in history, and to this end their concern was
“Have they understood? Will they transmit?” Intentionally or
not, they begot communities, bound together by the destiny of the
faith in a world of opposition. It was not irrelevant that the found-
ers, as reformers— and in the religious sphere which is the most
bitterly conservative of all spheres because the landmarks are so
few— had to be fighters as well as dreamers. Such communities,
which as Royce lias well said, will be communities of memory
and of hope, have also to be communities of struggle, burdened
with the trust of the teaching: the nerving memory of the origi-
nal founder-fighter was needed as the living spirit of the effort.
He would be thought of as present with them; the career of his
idea in history would be the continuance of his cosmic career.
The full profession of the Buddhist monk is, “I take refuge in the
Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma (the Law); I take refuge in
the Samgha (the brotherhood).” By a similar process to that by
which corporations in modern law become legal persons, these
communities took on quasi-personal life, promoted by but also
promoting the lives of their members. In them, something of the
divine nature of truth had not alone entered time, but had taken
on an historic career. It belonged to the nature of the divine to
act in this way in history; and this nature is identical in quality
with the nature of the founder, freed by death from bodily limi-

213

tations. To take refuge in him is equivalent to taking refuge in
God-in-history. We now see why the founder’s name, with va-
rious shadings of the superhuman attribute, enters into the creedal
statements of the several faiths. It is because, consciously or not,
they all agree on a farther point, that God must have a human
and temporal aspect, and that the human scene is ennobled by
his working presence there.

Neither Buddha nor Mohammed would have accepted the
phrase I used above, “God in history.” Not Buddha, for to him
there was no Brahman, but only the divine law, saving men from
suffering and the misery of endless rebirth. Not Mohammed, for
to him the divine majesty is unreachable, ungraspable, unem-
bodied in any finite form: Allah rules all things, inscrutably, but
he “neither begets nor is begotten,” and with that denial Islam
feels a permanent gulf set between itself and the Christian doc-
trine of the Son of God. But the chief agency in working toward
a world faith is to see beyond language to meanings, by the aid
of a sympathetic interpretation, aided by psychology. In the
sense I have mentioned, it is the idea of incarnation which has
given each of the founders his salient place in the creed. It is this
idea which Tagore’s “Religion of Man” is calling for and which
many a movement which regards itself as atheistic is unknow-
ingly using.

As these implicit meanings become slowly emergent into the
general consciousness of men, the abstract world faith already
present becomes by so much more concrete, and the obstacles of
creedal difference melt away, because the truth namelessly per-
suades. But it is important that differences should be worked
through, not abandoned; for men must differ according to their
insights in order that their union when it comes may hold all
their truth.

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Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

UNDERSTANDING AND REUNION:
AN ORIENTAL PERSPECTIVE

ANY discussion of a possible or actual influence of X
on Y takes for granted their difference; and if we are to discuss
the results of such an influence we must have some clear idea of
the characteristics of X, the influence to be traced, and Y, the
subject presumed to have been influenced. I have been asked to
discuss the problem generally, but with special reference to the
art of the theater and its significance.

It is obvious that understanding is prerequisite to reunion.
Were it not for difference, “understanding” would be need-
less; were it not for likeness, “reunion” impossible. In what re-
spects do the cultures of the East and of America differ, and by
what kinships are they linked behind the scenes? One initial point
must be emphasized, that the difference is only quite accidentally
geographical. No problem would exist if we had American In-
dians only in mind, nor would any serious problem have existed
if the ends of the earth had been brought together not now but
in the twelfth century. The predicament is one of period and
Zeitgeist. It is much as if one should ask: What, if anything, can
Platonism and Christianity still contribute to the welfare of the
modem world?

The Oriental culture and way of life are traditional, the mod-
em anti-traditional; the one values stability, the other change or
“progress”; one demands from art an adequate expression of
truth, the other self-expression; for the one, art is a necessity
without which nothing can be well or truly made or adapted to
good use; while for the other art is a luxury to be enjoyed apart
from activity and without bearing on conduct. The Oriental

215

dance, for example, is an intellectual discipline and always re-
sponsible to traditional themes; ours a gymnastic exercise and
physical display or, like other modern arts, the self-expression of
the artist’s private emotional storms. The Oriental artist, even at
a court, is really maintained by the collective patronage of a
unanimous society; the modem artist depends on the precarious
support of a clique that is only a tiny fraction of the whole com-
munity. As art dealt with themes which are and have been fa-
miliar to everyone, literate or illiterate, and whether rich or poor,
for millennia, there had been no necessity to include in cultural
curricula courses on “the appreciation of art.” When every pro-
fessional had his disciples or apprentices, there was little need
for “schools of art” in our sense, but only for masters and pupils.
In the East, the necessity for museums was not felt until the
traditional arts had been almost destroyed by the contagion of
modem civilization; just as when folksongs could be heard
everywhere, no one “collected” them.

In saying this, I have not in mind the current conception of
“fine art” but the more vital and universal view in which all the
arts, whether of painting, music, weaving or agriculture, are sim-
ply the means by which the needs of man’s body and soul are
simultaneously provided for. In this sense all the arts of a people
are, not a byproduct of their culture, but that culture itself, com-
posite of the forms of their way of life, and the visible evidence
of their character. Works of art are the “ornaments” of life only
in that original sense in which one says that the mind is adorned
by learning, rivers by water, or an altar by its furniture.1 It is
with the ways of life that are expressed in art, and the possible
influence of one upon another, that we are concerned. The whole
East has believed, with Plato, that such as is our music, such will
be the nature of our political institutions, that “life is a complex
phenomenon in which all the apparently autonomous aspects,
social, political, economic, moral, and aesthetic, are interlaced and
interwined together in such a manner that action in one aspect
will have momentous incidence in all the others.” 2
For example, in Tibet, “Metaphysics, ritual, law, government,
art, even dress and the conventions of politeness, fit together like
a jig-saw.” 8 As this quotation implies, correctly, such a harmony
within a given culture is only possible upon the basis of the pri-

216

macy of metaphysics. But the “first philosophy” is one and the
same for all cultures, regardless of the dialect in which the com-
mon language of the spirit is spoken; and an agreement and re-
union of these cultures, in which allowance can also be made for
adaptation to all local conditions, can have no other solid founda-
tion. The same will apply to the “reunion” of the churches (in
a much broader than the customary sense of the word “church”);
for whatever necessary differences distinguish these allegiances
from one another, all are based upon a common wisdom “that
was never made, but is now what it has ever been, and shall be
for ever,” 4 and to which, by the same token, no one people can
lay claim otherwise than by right of common inheritance. I have
used the word “reunion” advisedly, to imply that the present
disunion of the cultures is a temporary, and strictly speaking
accidental, predicament: “Where God is our teacher, all come
to think alike.” 5

As the late Dr. Heinrich Zimmer remarked in his admirable
introduction to La Meri’s The Gesture Language of the Hindu
Dance , “the Indian dance reflects the dance of the universe, whose
transient gestures we all of us are. ... Its function is to be an
encyclopedic initiation into the manifold mystery of life.” The
history of Indian dancing can be traced through three millennia,
and that of treatises on the subject through two. In the oldest
books we find a God (Indra) described as “dancing his heroic
deeds” and as “performing a metrical composition,” and that it
is a dance of the Gods that sets in motion the cosmic process.
We find also that the ritual of the sacrifice, which is an “imita-
tion” of what was done by the Gods in the beginning, includes
the dance in various forms; and that there are many gestures
which are common to the iconography of the deities, the perform-
ance of rites, and the expressive dance. These gestures are related
to those that are familiar in everyday life. It is, indeed, impossible
to detach a traditional art from its environment, and to consider
it simply as an art form. Art is a part of life, and life itself an art.

Indian dancing and music have never been “emancipated” from
their religious associations; even today their ensemble is per-
formed in temples before the image of the deity which receives
all the services due to a king. Even in what we should call secular
contexts, the dancer begins with prayer, and the fundamental theme

217

is that of the inner life. Thus in the words of the Upanisbad ,
we can say that “Those who sing here are singing of Him.” The
erotic themes of the Vaishnava songs and dances are not an imita-
tion of human behaviorism but of the archetypal loves of Eros
and Psyche, the Liebesgeschichte Himmels. Under these condi-
tions there are no bawdy songs; the same are sung and in the
same way understood by the religious and the prostitute. Like
Dante and Milton, the Oriental author is not working primarily
for aesthetic ends— Non facit ars cantorem , sed documentwn—
but employs his art, however artfully, to attract an other-minded
audience to the essential theme of Liberation. Rhetoric is not an
art of pleasing, but that of the effective communication of truth.
The myths that are displayed by word and gesture are not ab-
stracted from historical events, but true forever. If ever the
West should be profoundly moved by Eastern art, it can be
only to return to herself, temporarily forgotten.

One of the most familiar forms of Indian art in our museums
is that of Siva as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance, whose creative
and destructive, fettering and liberating operation is conceived
in terms of the theses and antitheses of a dance, of which the in-
cessance is the manifestation of his sustaining power. From this
cosmic dance all other activities, operations, and dances are, so to
speak, excerpts; to the extent of its perfection, every perform-
ance “participates” in the divine operation; the principles of danc-
ing are not of human invention, but revealed, and have been
transmitted from generation to generation in pupillary succession.
The standard of excellence is not one of the pleasure that may
be felt by a given audience, but one of correctness; just as for
Plato, the irregularity of human motions is to be corrected by
an assimilation to cosmic rhythms. An educated audience is pre-
supposed, one that will be pleased by whatever is correct in the
performance, and displeased conversely. It is in the same way
that the mathematician judges of the beauty of an equation.

The Oriental dance is a language. Its motions, or gestures,
compose an organized vocabulary of constant meanings; that is
to say, a given position of the hand has a basic significance, like
that of a verbal root, but takes on innumerable shades of mean-
ing according to the way in which the hand is moved and the
whole context in which the gesture is made. Ia this way the dance

218

becomes a vehicle for the expression of all kinds of meanings,
from the simplest to the most abstractly metaphysical. We must
not, however, conceive of the gestures as isolated from one an-
other; they are strung together in rhythmic sequences, one melt-
ing into the next, as words are strung together to make a poem—
“surpassing all one can imagine of smooth, unending motion.” In
other words, to dance and to enact are one and the same thing,
and it would be tautological to speak of a “nautch dance,” the
word “nautch” itself deriving from a root that implies at the
same time a mimetic gesticulation and the “registration” of the
hero’s or heroine’s (not the dancer’s) states of mind. Hence, in
discussing the influence of the Oriental dance, we are really dis-
cussing that of the theater.

What do we mean by an “influence” in such a case? In Asia,
India has played the part of Greece in Europe, and we know
to what extent we are still here indebted to Greece, however
unconsciously. The influence of the Indian technique can be
traced throughout Asia, and far down into the South Seas. At
the same time each of the other great cultures of Asia preserves
its own independence and unmistakably local color. This unques-
tionable case of “influence” is therefore worth considering. The
Indian influence on the drama of Eastern Asia cannot be isolated
from that of Indian culture as a whole: the fact that these other
cultures were based on essentially similar principles made the as-
similation of new formulae possible and easy; there was nothing
exotic in the Indian point of view; it could be assimilated without
disagreeing with their own and without a merely manneristic
imitation. One may say, perhaps, that an influence is liable to have
been the more profound the less obviously it can be recognized
in outward forms, which may represent nothing but a passing
fashion, comparable to those of our own past periods of Chinoi-
serie and Japonisme; and also, that those who are already rich,
can best afford to lend or borrow.

One cannot but feel, accordingly, to quote the French Ori-
entalist Jean Buhot, that “No study of Oriental art will, I think,
be very profitable to the West until some attempt has been made
to imitate also the mental attitude of the East.” 6 This mental atti-
tude is incompatible on the one hand with that of our “scientific
humanists,” and on the other with that of our “aestheticians.” It

219

is putting the cart before the horse to suppose that such a gulf
can be bridged by any borrowing of Oriental idioms, however
they may please our eye or ear or otherwise intrigue us.

The same writer similarly doubts whether Eastern music “will
ever find in the West the congenial, tranquil atmosphere which
is essential to its enjoyment.” Neither the dance nor music is pre-
sented in the East in great buildings with complicated machinery
or for a particular class of “playgoers” or musical “fans.” There
are folk singers and court musicians, and performances in the
open air and in temples and palaces, at weddings and other special
occasions. Under some conditions, up to the present day in Java,
for example, more than a year’s work and immense sums of
money may be expended by a prince on the preparation of a
dramatic performance. But this does not mean that the people’s
money is spent only for his private enjoyment; on the contrary,
the performance is open to the public, with only what might be
called reserved seats for the patrons. It often happens, too, that
members of the royal family are themselves expert members of
the cast. Peasant and aristocrat share the same fundamental in-
terests and understand the same arts.

Nowhere in the world is the dance more specialized than in
Bali, yet

The dancer in Bali is simply another of those anony-
mous artisans who are continually renewing its cultural
life . . . The elegance of the Redjang dancers in their
long black skirts, and the subdued brillance of their corsage
and train, their delicate fluttering fans and lovely coiffure
of flowers, covering the front of the head and outlining
the great coil of hair that frames the head on one side, as
one still sees in certain old stone figures of noble ladies,
goddess or princess, could scarcely be surpassed. But it is
not so much the dress which lends distinction to the wear-
ers as they who wear marvelously the dress. They may
have tucked up their skirts knee high to wade the stream
which divides the village from the temple, they may have
waited in the mud and rain, but they never look anything
but supremely elegant. To picture them among ourselves
we should have to imagine for them an ideally refined and

220

beautiful setting; but they are in perfect harmony here
with the mud floor of the palm-thatched ground outside
the temple, lit by flickering oil flames and surrounded by
their equals, the whole population of a Balinese village,
swarms of naked children, boys and girls with old kains
about their legs, women in towel turbans with naked
breasts, young men and old squatting on the ground with
the perfect grace they so mysteriously possess.7

“Before the decadent period ... (the Burmese) stage was an
open space in the center of the orchestra, around which the audi-
ence sat . . . The stage scenery consisted only of a tree branch
to represent a forest, and a property box to represent the
throne”; 8 just as in the Elizabethan drama which, “being without
scenery and elaborate stage apparatus, made its appeal to the
mind rather than to the eye.” 9 Such pictures as this must be con-
sidered when we ask ourselves in what way Oriental dancing can
affect us, whose notions of art and culture are bound up with
exhibitions in museums and concerts in Symphony Halls on the
one hand, or on the other with the notion of a communal singing
and dancing in which everyone takes part and none is a trained
expert. What, in fact, we cannot learn from the American In-
dians, we cannot any more easily learn from the East. To make a
real use of all these things, our whole way of living would have
to be transformed.

To give any impression of Oriental music as a whole would
be very difficult, if only because of its great variety, necessarily
implied by its application to all the varied occasions of life. An
Oriental can readily understand and be moved by a Gaelic folk-
song or by the Gregorian chant, while hardly anything later than
Bach will seem to him to be musical at all. His conception of
music is in the first place linear and at the same time modal;
almost everyone can recognize and discriminate between the
rather large number of modes in general use. Just because there
has been no development of vertical harmonization, a far more
extended and varied development of melodic forms than can be
imagined by our concert-goers has been possible.

Real Oriental music and dancing have rarely been seen or
heard in America; but the rare and outstanding opportunities

221

that have presented themselves have been deeply appreciated.
These have been provided by Uday Shankar, Mei Lan Fan, and
the Siamese royal dancers who performed at the Keith Memorial
Theatre in Boston and in New York; none of those who saw
these performances can ever have forgotten them. One or two
Europeans who have studied Oriental music in the East have
given recitals that have been deeply appreciated in rather limited
circles. On the other hand, few Americans have been even aware
of the rather humble but strictly traditional theaters that have
been supported by the Chinese communities of Boston, New
York, and San Francisco.

Oriental influence has certainly played a part in the current
interest in masks and in the type of mask that has been made;
and has, perhaps, something to do with the revival of marionettes.
No large-scale production of shadow plays has been attempted,
except in the sense that a movie is a kind of shadow play; the pos-
sibilities here are unlimited, especially for themes in which mirac-
ulous or supernatural effects are required. Among the earliest
attempts to represent the Orient on the stage were those of Ruth
St. Denis; the approach was romantic and far from scholarly, but
imaginative and sincere, and at least at first a really Oriental at-
mosphere was created. Some composers, notably Ehrlich, have
made extensive use of Oriental themes. Madame La Meri, author
of the book referred to below, has presented Oriental dance se-
quences as nearly true to Indian feeling as would seem to be
possible for a foreigner. Only a very limited amount of good Ori-
ental music is available on records, and still less of Oriental danc-
ing on accessible films. There are practically no records available
of poetic recitative. We have not yet asked for these things
from the East; to ask for them would be the “right demand that
evokes the right response.”

What may be, in the last analysis, a more far-reaching, although
less tangible, influence of Oriental dancing and music has been
exerted through a number of books, in which not only the tech-
nique and effects of these arts, but also their underlying philoso-
phy, have been treated with sympathy and understanding. One of
these was my own Mirror of Gesture (2nd edition, with Bibli-
ography, New York, 1927), another the recently published and
more fully illustrated book by Madame La Meri, The Gesture

111

Language of the Hindu Dance (New York, 1942). Beryl de
Zoete and Walter Spies, enlarging on a theme already well treated
by Miguel Covarrubias, in his Island of Bali, have produced a
work of real genius in their Dance and Drama in Bali (New
York, 1939); I do not know how anyone can have read such a
book as this, or even looked at its marvelous illustrations, with-
out being deeply stirred and impressed by the picture of what
the arts can mean in a community whose erotic, social, religious,
artistic, and economic activities are so inextricably interwoven as
to make it impossible, even in a book, to break up the unity of
their culture into isolated categories of experience.

In speaking of books we must not ignore many others that
have been published here and/or in Europe and are available to
American readers. For example, M. H. Aung, Burmese Drama ,
Oxford, 1937; Fox-Strangways, The Music of Hindustan , Ox-
ford, 1914; A. B. Keith, The Sanskrit Drama, Oxford, 1924; R. G.
Thakurta, The Bengali Drama, London, 1930; Th. B. van Lely-
veld, La danse dans le theatre javanais , Paris, 1931; Chu-Chia-
Chien and A. Jacovleff, The Chinese Theatre , London, 1922;
A. E. Zucker, The Chinese Theatre, London, 1925; L. C. Arling-
ton, The Chinese Drama, Shanghai, 1930; M. C. Stop es, The
Plays of Old Japan, London, 1913; Zoe Kincaid, Kabuki, the
Popular Stage of Japan, London, 1925; A Miyamori, Masterpieces
of Chikamatsu, London and New York, 1926; A. Maybon, Le
theatre japonais, Paris, 1925; E. Fenollosa and E. Pound, ‘NohJ
or Accomplishment, London, 1916; A. Waley, The No Plays
of Japan, London, 1921, New York, 1922; Noel Peri, Cinq
No, Paris, 1921; R. Umemoto and Y. Ishizawa, Introduction to
the Classical Dances of Japan , Tokyo, 1935; B. Laufer, Oriental
Theatricals, Chicago, 1923; G. Wimsatt, Chinese Shadow Shows ,
Cambridge, 1936; B. March, Chinese Shadow Plays and Their
Making, Detroit, 1938; five volumes on Japanese drama, dancing,
and music in the “Tourist Library”; and the present writer’s
Transformation of Nature in Art, 2d edition, Cambridge, 1935,
and Why Exhibit Works of Art? London, 1943. Mr. Alain Dan-
ielou’s Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales, London, 1943,
deals with the metaphysical implications of Indian musical theory,
and contrasts the traditional Asiatic and modem Western musical
procedures. Besides these books, very many articles on Indian and

223

Indonesian dancing and dramatics have appeared in Indian Art and
Letters (London), La revue des arts asiatiques (Paris), Djavoa
(Weltevreden), and Triveni (India), and others. An article on the
“Dance in India” will be found in the last edition of the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica. The best account of Chinese music will be
found in J. H. Levi, Foundations of Chinese Musical Art, Peiping,
1936. Noel Peri’s Essai sur les ganrmes japonaises , Paris, 1934, con-
tains an extensive bibliography, and also a discussion of the pos-
sibility of “harmonizing” Japanese music; the question, whether
such harmonizing of Asiatic music is either possible or desirable
is one of those most pertinent to our inquiry. A very useful sum-
mary account of Asiatic music will be found in R. Lachmann’s
Musik des Orients , Breslau, 1929; and a more detailed discussion
in Curt Sachs’ admirable Rise of Music in the Ancient World ,
East and West , New York, 1943. The publication of so many
books and articles, almost all within the last twenty years, implies
the existence of a considerable public interested in their sub-
ject matter. Nearly all of these books and articles are based on
solid foundations of knowledge and sympathy; their point of
view is neither superficial nor romantic, and their influence has
in all probability outweighed any effects of which direct evidence
could be easily discovered.

We must also speak of Rhetoric because no serious study or
criticism of Indian drama, dancing, or music can be undertaken
without some knowledge of the vast literature that has been de-
voted to the theory of expression by means of words in poetry,
as well as in the languages of gesture, music, and even painting
and sculpture. In these technical works, which correspond more
nearly to what is sometimes called “Poetics”— and let us not for-
get that, as Plato says, “ all the arts are kinds of ‘poetry’ ’’—than to
what is now so awkwardly called “Aesthetics,” are to be found
the categories and definitions of all the ideas and feelings that
can be “registered” or “danced”; and furthermore, an adumbra-
tion that can be expressed in works of art of the nature of the
final experience involved in what is called the “tasting of the
flavor.” Works of art, as a whole or in their parts, are charac-
terized by “flavors” (rasa), and these flavors are as it were the
distilled essences of the actual states-of-mind ( bhdva ) that are
registered by those who speak or play in poems, dramas, or

224

dances. For example, the “Heroic” flavor corresponds to the dis-
play of “Courage.” It is not in order that the spectator may par-
ticipate in the hero’s feelings directly and sympathetically that he
must be both sensitive and learned, but that he may taste their
qualities, and finally, relish only that one flavor in which all the
distinctive tastes of life are fused, just as the tastes of many flow-
ers are confused in what can only be called the taste of honey;
and that is the taste of God, the superlative flavor and last end of
all expressions; so, as the Upanishad expresses it, “Those who sing
here to the harp are singing Him” And that is true; for, like
Dante, the Oriental author is not working primarily for aesthetic
ends, but employs his art, however artfully, to attract an other-
minded audience to the essential theme of Liberation, which
might be called the leitmotiv of all Eastern art.

We have so far maintained that the actual influence of Orien-
tal dancing and music upon the American theater has been slight
and superficial, and have attributed this to the widely differing
purposes and points of view on which the Oriental and modern
civilizations are based. If that is a correct diagnosis, it will still be
pertinent to ask in what way such an influence may yet be felt,
and in what sense it could be thought of as desirable. Clearly, we
cannot isolate the influence of the dance from that of other as-
pects of Oriental culture as a whole, by which America has al-
ready been affected and is likely to be more profoundly affected
in the future, as Europe was influenced by Eastern ideas in the
somewhat analogous age of the Crusades. On the other hand, it
is evident that nothing like an Orientalization of the West is to
be desired. For an Oriental, however critical of modern Western
civilization he might be, to propose to “proselytize” the West
would be only to invert the error of those (and they are many)
who firmly believe that the best thing possible for the East would
be to imitate our own political and industrial forms and to adopt
the material values on which they rest; or that of those who seek
to evangelize the East in a very different sense. We need hardly
say that influences exerted in this way, and which involve the
borrowing of outward forms, lead only to caricature.

Insofar as there is involved a conflict of two contrasted cul-
tures, that is for America just as much an internal as it is an out-
wardly geographical problem. Here in America metaphysics and

22 5

religion— the latter already sentimentalized— are fighting an ap-
parently losing battle with scientific materialism and the con-
cepts of economic and psychological determinism; art is no longer
valued as a means to “good use” and for its significance, but only
as a means to aesthetic experience, i.e. for its effects upon our
sensations.

At the same time it is almost universally felt that Western civ-
ilization has disappointed the high hopes that were entertained
for it in the nineteenth century; it has given men neither peace
nor security, and even here the question can be asked, whether
we have not missed our way and ought not, in some sense, to re-
trace our steps. It is precisely at this point that the problem of
Oriental “influence” acquires its great significance. It cannot, how-
ever, be altogether dissociated from the problem of Western in-
fluence upon the East, although this is one with which the pres-
ent volume is not directly concerned. For whether we think either
of these two influences desirable will depend upon our stand in
the conflict of spiritual with material values within the limits
of our own world. The “Orient,” in the present discussion, can
only mean the traditional Orient, and not the Westernized East,
since we cannot suppose an influence exerted by an effect upon
its cause: and there can be no question upon which side the tra-
ditional Orient stands. Whatever influence it may exert can be
only on the side of the spiritual values; and it is for this reason
that it is to be welcomed, not as a proselytizing power, but as an
ally, as an “extrinsic and probable proof” and reminder of many
things that are already ours but that have been forgotten. Noth-
ing is more usual than for an Oriental to say to a European that
there is little or nothing in his culture or sacred books that the
latter does not already possess, if he would but remember it; for
example, as Rene Guenon justly remarks, “Hindus may be some-
times seen encouraging Europeans to return to Catholicism, and
even helping them to understand it, without being in the least
drawn to it on their own account.” 10 Only those for whom “spir-
itual” values are merely “superstitions” to be outgrown as soon
as possible will be afraid of or wish to resist an Oriental influence,
or to rise up in “defence of the West.” For this influence, insofar
as it may be deliberately exerted, will never be exerted with a
view to persuading Europeans to adopt forms that were not made

226

for them and for which they are not constitutionally adapted:
it is generally the European who wants to practise Yoga, and the
Oriental who seeks to dissuade him, reminding him that he has
contemplative disciplines of his own.

We spoke of a “reminding” deliberately, because it has been
always the function of the traditional arts, at the same time that
they give us pleasure or supply a physical need, to serve as re-
minders of the invisible prototypes of which they are “imita-
tions” and in which they “participate.” Whoever attempts to
understand Eastern art (the same holds good in the case of “prim-
itive” and medieval art) will find that he cannot do so without
an understanding of its themes, and that no real judgment of its
qualities is possible on the basis of the aesthetic surfaces alone;
we cannot know if a thing has been well said until we know what
it was that was to be said. As soon as we begin to study Oriental
drama, we find that we are involved in a mythology, or in
other words in metaphysics; for as ^istotle very truly remarked,
the mythologist is a philosopher, and as Plato also said, philoso-
phy begins with wonder.

Our modern antipathy to religion, and our social reluctance to
speak of God, are largely the result of what we called above the
“sentimentalizing” of religion, and the general endeavor to make
of the great religious heroes, notably the Christ and the Buddha,
the sort of men we can approve of and also, by an elimination of
the marvelous features in their “lives,” the sort of men to whom
we can attribute an historical reality, and in whom we can there-
fore “believe”; we are bewildered by the man who can say “I
know that my Redeemer liveth” but is far from being convinced
that he ever lived . We have lost the habit of those things that
happened “once upon a time”— i.e. in principio , id est in Filio, and
therefore now and always— and do not realize that the stories of
the Solar Hero and the Bride, Prince Charming and Enchanted
Princess, Psychopomp and Psyche, must end with the words
“lived happily ever after”— i.e. eternally— and that nothing more is
told of them just because the eternal life to which he awakens her
by sword or kiss is actually uneventful and cannot be related in
the terms of any narrative. It is just those myths and fairy-tales
that we consider only from the angle of their literary value that
provide the theses of the Oriental drama; while we have come

227

to think of Epic and Romance, and even of Dante, to say noth-
ing of the Bible, primarily as “literature” and only secondarily,
if at all, as expositions of a “theory” essential to our felicity.
It is, in fact, precisely our “aesthetic” that stands between us and
a real understanding of Eastern art, at the same time that in more
scholarly circles what is intended to be an objective application
of historical methods becomes aloofness; which aesthetic and
aloofness serve us as a mechanism of defense, “lest we should
hear, and understand, and be converted.” It has been said that
“the prostitution of scientific truth may lead to world catastro-
phe” and that “responsibility for this problem in a peculiar sense
lies within the domain of Oriental studies”: 11 but it is a question
whether much can be expected from the passionless reason of our
objective scholarship, which concerns itself so much rather with
what men have believed than with what should be believed.

If, then, we were to be seriously influenced by the Oriental
theater, we should hardly expect to find the evidence of it in any
recognizable imitation of its formulae (even though these might
be of use in certain cases), but rather in a change of the domi-
nant subject matter, a shifting from the depiction on the stage of
our own all too human behaviorism, to a representation of myths.
We should, in fact, be producing “Mystery Plays.” But that
could only be if we were as much interested in the “mystery” of
the inner man as we are in “ourselves,” the outer man. One might,
of course, point to Wagner as the outstanding European example
of a modem producer of “mysteries,” and also, needless to say,
to the Passion Play at Bayreuth. But these are isolated cases, and
that of Wagner is more or less vitiated, partly by his own “ar-
tistic” personality, and still more by the manner in which the
Ring is actually staged, not so much as a myth in which the audi-
ence believes or as a rite in which it participates as a spectacle to
be enjoyed and applauded.12 The only drama amongst ourselves
that is really what drama means to those who as Hindus are pres-
ent at a Ram or Krishna Lila, or as Javanese witness a shadow
play, or as Tibetans a so-called “devil-dance,” is that of the Mass,
performed in church, not as a spectacle, but as a sacrifice.

The problem of understanding the East, and that of enriching
our own culture through the closer contacts that circumstances
have made presently inevitable, is then as much one of our own

228

inner life as it is of the external adaptation of what may seem at
first to be new and strange ideas. On one side of us, although a
side that has been more or less deliberately suppressed in the cur-
rent world of an “impoverished reality” and that lives more by
facts than by meanings, there is no barrier that separates East
from West; there is no fundamental doctrine of the Philosophia
Perennis that cannot as well be supported from Oriental as from
Western sources. On the other side, that which is represented by
“scientific humanism,” with its denial of the reality of any knowl-
edge not based on sensibility, and by the social values that take
for granted the existence of castes of workers and fighters from
whom no great measure of intelligence or culture can be ex-
pected, East and West are still at cross purposes. For the East,
“ chaque occupation est un sacerdoce” 13 and livelihood is the
accident of calling, while in the West it is far more his wages
than his work that interests the workman.14 In the East it is
through devotion to one’s natural calling (Plato’s to eaoToii
wparceev, xatd <p6<jcv) that perfection is attainable; the West ig-
nores that there are no degrees of perfection, and that an excel-
lent carpenter must be more nearly perfect, as the Father in
heaven is perfect, than an incompetent physician could ever be.
It is proverbial that the Oriental craftsman loves his work: but
the industrial workman loves his play; and there is an issue that
can only be resolved on that level of reference where the distinc-
tion of work from play elapses.15 The natural end of work is the
production of utilities; and there is, perhaps, no field in which
the East can better co-operate with the West than in that of the
conflict with production for profit, of which the consequences
are so degrading to the workman and so often injurious to the
consumer.

Again, I refer to the Crusades: it may very well be that when
we are able to look back upon the present century as we can now
upon the history of Europe, we shall see in its ultimate cul-
tural forms as many factors of Middle and Far Eastern origin as
we can now recognize to have been of Islamic origin. What
Arabian, and indirectly Persian culture was for the Middle Ages
—of which Dante is the universal demonstration 16— Indian and
Chinese may become for us. If there is still a bridge to be built,
Meister Eckhart and Jalalu’d Din RumI are its piers, already

229

standing. Meister Eckhart, who spoke of Plato as “that great
priest,” and Jill, who saw him in a vision, “filling all space with
light,” are of one mind. The very possibility of an “influence,”
indeed, presupposes an already existing kinship; none could be
exerted where no foothold could be found. Would it be easy for
a European, if there had been no' Plotinus, Dionysius, or Eckhart
in his cultural background, to understand the Upamshads? or, had
there been no “Companions,” no “Fideles de 1’ Amour” in the
West, no Dante, easy for him to penetrate the Sufis, with their
“What is love? Thou shalt know when thou becomest Me”? 17
Without some hidden affinity, could the English De Morgan and
George Boole or the New England Transcendentalists have assimi-
lated so much of the Vedanta? Or how could the sophisticated
world of mid-nineteenth-century France have been moved by
Indian mythology,18 the visible quintessence of her wisdom?

The assimilation of Eastern ideas should be a slow, and
for the majority an almost unconscious, process. It will imply
at the center an agreement on principles; since it is only at that
level that there can be a total agreement: but such an agreement
will still permit of the greatest possible differences in application,
which must always be appropriate to the constitution of those
who live on principle. Thus the evidences of Asiatic influence
may never be conspicuous, even if far reaching. We cannot avoid
the conclusion that any real assimilation of Oriental art must
have an ultimately religious basis; or that while it may be taken
for granted that an influence of some kind will be felt in any
case, it must depend on something like a change of heart in our-
selves whether the influence is for evil, or for good. The Chris-
tian West is the natural heir of the view of art implicit and
explicit in the Greek Paideia, viz. that only those arts are ac-
ceptable and fine that serve the needs of the body and the soul
at one and the same time. Thus the East and the Classical and
Medieval West are at one in holding that we cannot give the
name of art to anything irrational, or consent to judgments of
art based on likes or dislikes. It is to a renewal of this agreement
that the influence of Oriental art, and especially that important
part of it that has to do most obviously with showmanship, may
lead, if only in connection with all showmanship we ask our-
selves, with Plato, “Of what is the artist such a skilful exhib-
itor?” 19 That is the question.

230

Pearl S. Buck

CONCLUSION:
EAST AND WEST

IT HAS long been a fashion to say that the East is
“spiritual” and the West “material,” but, like many common
things that are heedlessly spoken, it is not true. This particular
saying is not always heedlessly spoken, either. It is repeated by
the frustrated on both sides of the world. Those Westerners who
have not had what they wanted out of life have taken refuge in
thinking themselves too sensitive for their environment, too fine
for the appreciation which they would like and do not get, and
they have declared their environment too crass and their neigh-
bors too coarse to understand their delicate qualities. It is natural
that these should think wistfully of the East which they do not
know but which they have heard is less material-minded than the
West.

But there are frustrated souls in the East, also, who out of a
sort of inverted pride and a certain jealousy of the extreme mate-
rial prosperity of the West, have declared that such prosperity
was beneath the peoples of the East, who think more of their
souls than of their bodies. Out of a secret conviction of inferi-
ority one will hear some men from the East then cry out against
that materialism of the West and proclaim their own spiritual su-
periority.

All of this is nonsense. The East is neither more nor less spir-
itual than the West, and the West is neither more nor less
materialistic than the East. Indians and Chinese love their com-
forts and their food and their wealth as well as any American
does and will do as much to get them. I do not find, East and
West, any difference in this sort of thing.

231

Extremes of wealth and poverty are more vast in India, and
probably in China, than they are in the United States or in Eng-
land today. The people of India take their religion hard, as most
oppressed peoples do, but China takes religion very lightly in-
deed, and, by and large, the Chinese are a practical and material-
istic people, with a shrewdness which oftei} makes them disliked
in other Eastern countries. I do not doubt that even in India the
people will pursue religion far less heartily when their bodies are
better fed and industries provide jobs as well as labor aids.

This may be said of all men alike— they prefer to have food
rather than to starve, to have shelter rather than to be homeless,
to be healthy rather than diseased, to live long rather than short
lives, to be happy rather than sorrowful. Given the choice be-
tween a comfortable life on earth and a possible heaven after-
wards, people, East and West, will choose a good life on earth.

Then where did this myth about the spiritual East and the ma-
terial West come from? It has its roots in a sdrt of truth, and this
truth can be simply stated. The East, generally speaking, will not
sell all it has for more of anything. People over there like to en-
joy life. They will not work so hard that they have no time for
simple pleasure in living, in eating, in sleeping, in playing with
their children, and in talking with their wive$ and familes. They
will not take on two jobs if they can pay their bills with one, for
two jobs eat up their time and distract their minds. They do not
want to think constantly about work. They enjoy work less than
other things. This is not to say they are lazy. They are not in the
least lazy. They put an enormous amount of energy into their
skills and pastimes. But to work merely to earn more money than
they need is to them not sensible. They are ambitious, but not
most of all for money, because all that they want cannot be bought
with money. Peace cannot be bought with money, and fun can-
not be bought with money, nor laughter, nor time to smoke and
drink tea, nor time to make flower gardens and write poetry, or
to walk on the hills carrying a bird cage, or to play with children.

In the West money does seem necessary for what people want.
A car, two cars, a house, two houses— one in the city, one in the
country— gadgets, labor-saving machinery, fine furniture, all these
things are desirable but expensive, and so money is the first req-
uisite. Men spend their lives in making money to buy things.

232

Competition, too, is keen in the West and not very keen in the
East. To have more cars, more houses, better houses, finer fur-
niture, more expensively dressed wives and daughters than one’s
neighbor has, these are desirable in the West and again money is
needed. But the average man of the East would reason that he
cannot ride in more than one car or live in more than one house
at a time, nor sleep in more than one bed, and he does not want
other men or women envying his wife and daughters, nor does
he want to envy others theirs, so why does he need so much
money?

It is not that one man is more spiritual than the other, or more
material. It is simply that the values in East and West are differ-
ent. The man in the East wants more out of life itself than the
man in the West does. He wants plenty of peace and pleasure for
himself, and he will not work more than enough to get him as
much peace and pleasure as he wants. If anything, the East is
more materialistic than the West. The East, being so old, knows
how short life is. Man’s years pass so quickly, and the time for
keenness of the senses is over so soon. Therefore enjoyment of
life cannot be put off, for in old age the senses are dulled, and
man can enjoy but a little. He can eat only a little food and drink
only a little wine and the day is over for passion. To waste one’s
youth, therefore, in making money would to the man of the East
seem the sheerest folly.

But one cannot live among the people of the East without feel-
ing something more than this, too. Again this something is not
spiritual, in the sense of being other-worldly. It is, rather, in-
tensely human. There is in all the old countries of the East, so
much older and more crowded than other parts of the world, an
extraordinarily delicate consideration of the human individual.
Can this be true, one may ask, when one sees the suffering of beg-
gars and of the diseased and poverty-stricken? Even so, there is
consideration beyond anything we of the West know. I mean
that there is a deep sense of the importance of psychological un-
derstanding between persons and peoples. The real materialism of
the West lies in its ignorance of the importance of such psycho-
logical understanding. The average citizen of a western country
is apt to scoff at anything so intangible as human relations. The
feelings, the state of mind, the personal peculiarities of an indi-

233

vidual are dealt with impatiently if at all. The result is an amount
of personal frustration and unhappiness which is really astound-
ing, in view of the material comforts and aids of our civilization.

“Man cannot live by bread alone,” is a saying of the Orient
which we of the West have never believed or understood. We
have shallowly interpreted it as meaning that we need religion as
well as factories, but that is not what it means. The people of the
East know it means that a man is not necessarily happy because
he has bread to eat and possessions enough. They know it means
that he has certain needs of the heart and the mind that must be
satisfied, too. He needs appreciation and understanding and tol-
erance and patience. He has a psychic life as well as a physical
one.

The peoples in crowded old countries of the East have lived so
closely together that they know the happiness of all depends upon
the happiness of the individual, and individuals can only be happy
when they are allowed personal freedom to be themselves, inside
the security of the close human unit of family and community,
and therefore each individual must be dealt with by others as an
individual. Grandfather has grandfather’s needs. He is old and
talkative and somebody must listen to him talk and answer him
and make him feel welcome and respected. And little grandson is
small and does not know how to behave yet and so too much
must not be expected of him and he must be allowed to have
enough of his own way to keep him happy, and yet not so much
that he is a nuisance to other people, and he must be taught, with-
out frustrating him too much, that he must consider the needs of
others and not only himself.

All this is done not from a religious or spiritual motive, but
from plain common sense. Everybody is happier if all are happy,
and the end of life is to be as happy as one can be. It is practical
to make others happy, for the sake of one’s own happiness, not
because God wants us to do so.

The emphasis on human happiness is, I believe, the greatest gift
which the East has to give the West. The free peoples of the
East are certainly the happiest in the world, eteri as the slave peo-
ples there are the saddest in the world. For the people of India
have the same conviction about happiness as the people of China—

234

they also would like to be happy, but none can be happy without
freedom.

But human happiness is not only dependent on human freedom
—it is dependent, too, on knowing how to enjoy life and the sim-
ple gifts of life, on good family life and pleasant community
fellowship, on all the human relationships, first of all. To under-
stand human relationships and to know what is required in each
is the beginning of happiness in the nation, the peoples of the East
believe.

The Chinese early defined the human relationships and the
duties required. These requirements emphasized psychological
understanding rather than material support. The material support
was to be only so much as was necessary to remove fear and suf-
fering from the mind.

We of the West need to have happiness restored to us, not
through a new spiritual rebirth, in the sense of a new religion,
but through a plain and simple return to what makes people really
happy. The East is right about it— what makes a human being
happy is to feel himself wanted and understood and appreciated.
The fabulous courtesy of the East is not a ritual, but simply oil to
grease the machinery of human relationships.

And the people of the East need from us the physical aids
which will make them still more happy— science to heal diseased
bodies and to remove a crushing labor and to provide more food.

There is nothing incomprehensible in the East or in the West.
We are like men digging a tunnel through a mountain. We have
begun at opposite ends but the goal is the same— human happiness.
We ought to meet somewhere one of these days, and find that
each faces the other’s light.

235

APPENDICES

FACTS AND CURIOSA OF THE
EAST-INDIA TRADE

Collected by Arthur E . Christy

Some readers might have turned to this book for “new light” on the his-
tory of the Indies trade. Much research remains to be done and numerous
books must be written before the history of that trade is fully known. Fur-
thermore, the intent of this book is not to explore commercial and economic
relations. What follows represents, therefore, merely a very modest contribu-
tion to the primary materials available in print, a suggestion of the varied
documents which are still to be explored by historians, and an effort to cap-
ture if only briefly the lure of the East-India trade.

The samples of documents in various collections of East-India trade
records which follow have been quarried from libraries and archives in
Europe and America. To give the Historical background of each document,
or to discuss its significance, would expand an appendix into another book.
The reader is therefore requested to judge each document in the light of its
inherent worth, mindful that no isolated item can ever represent the whole
truth regarding great social issues or the various stages in the long history of
Oriental-Occidental relations. Finally, it is hoped that the facts and curiosa
which follow will both entertain the reader and suggest to researchers many
engaging problems as yet unexplored.

Appendix A contains samples of broadsides preserved at the Bodleian
Library, Oxford, which reveal the disruption of English industry by the im-
portations of the East India Company (founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1600),
preceding the passage in 1700 of the first Act of Parliament to restrict the
trade and to protect home industries. The broadsides are for the most part
dated about 1699 and represent the climax of the protests of various guilds.
The problems of cheap labor and economic competition from the Orient
continue into our own day. In the light of these broadsides, one can readily
understand why an Englishman of the eighteenth century wrote of Indian
cotton goods as that “tawdry, piesotted, flabby, low priced thing called Calli-
coe . . . made by a parcel of Heathens and Pagans that worship the devil
and work for a half-penny a day.”

Appendix B contains transcripts of documents which reveal the rivalry of
English and American merchants, after the latter formally entered direct
trade with Canton and other ports of the Indies in 1784. It is not to be as-
sumed, however, that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries American
colonists were not supplied with the spices, fabrics, and other commodities of
the trade. In varying degrees the English East India Company met the de-
mands. But the colonists also took matters into their own hands. The logbook
of the ship Prudent, which made a voyage to Colombo in 1806, now in the
large collection at the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts, contains the
following stanza:

Yankee doodle had a Wife,

She was hard of hearing;

He put a Swivle on her Back and
Sent her a Privateering.

236

Much research remains to be done on this phase of American Colonial his-
tory. The documents presented in this section are from the records of the
English East India Company, preserved in London, and deal chiefly with
the rivalries and the smuggling of the early national decades. They record the
observations and fears of English traders and consuls in various parts of the
world to which American ships had penetrated.

Appendix C contains samples of the unpublished records of the American-
China trade during the so-called Clipper Ship era. Selected not only to illus-
trate the conduct and profits of the trade itself and the speculative “adven-
tures” of very small investors, they also offer a list of the commodities and
reveal the volume of trade handled by a large Boston company during a
typical year. The relations between American captains and supercargoes, and
the Hong merchants of Canton and their associates, are also suggested. No
fact stands out more clearly in the logbooks and journals kept by the Ameri-
can traders than their dependence on the good will and honesty of the Chi-
nese merchants appointed by the Emperor to the Cohong, through which all
foreigners were required to transact the major part of their business. The
need and expediency of securing the services of the best available merchant
were great. Since silks, porcelains, and teas were the articles in greatest de-
mand, orders were usually manufactured or packed while the ships awaited
their cargoes. The trustworthiness of the Chinese contractors and security
merchants could almost determine the success or failure of a voyage. It is
consequently not surprising to find in many a journal frank commentary on
the character of the merchant with whom the American trader had dealings.
Houqua, for many years the head of the Hong, was frequently described as
“very rich” and “just in all his doings, in short a man of honour and verac-
ity,” who had more business than any other of the eleven members of the
Cohong. Youqua, some recorded, generally “sends good cargoes” but was
“pushed for money at times.” Consequa was reputed to be “rich— roguish-
ingratiating— polite,” a man who sends “some excellent cargoes— some bad
cargoes,” but who in general was “not attentive enough to business and a
man with whom you cannot talk with safety, as he will promise everything
& perform what he pleases.” Nevertheless few men had greater influence than
the Chinese members of the Cohong in laying the foundations of good will
between two great peoples of the East and West in the beginnings of their
intercourse.

Appendix D reveals both the romantic adventures and the sufferings of
American seamen. The cruelties of the Barbary pirates which led to war are
illustrated. Less well-known is the fact that more than half a century before
Commodore Perry opened Japan to American commerce, Yankee captains had
sailed into Nagasaki and traded with the Japanese. Captain James Devereux
of Salem, Massachusetts, sailed his ship, the Franklin, to Japan in 1799 and
thus deserves an honored place as the first individual in the maritime history
of his country to take an American crew into a Japanese harbor. The second
ship was the Margaret, famous in its day and belonging to the great Derby
interests of Salem, which visited Japan in 1801. The conditions were unique
and are a part of the history of European empires overseas. The Dutch, hav-
ing supplanted the Portuguese in Japan, were permitted at infrequent inter-
vals to send one ship from Batavia to Nagasaki. On occasions when Dutch
ships were not available, those of foreign nationals were chartered and sailed
under their own crews, but with a Dutch supercargo to represent the Dutch
East India Company. It was under these conditions that the first two Ameri-
can ships to vjsit Japan were engaged. The documents taken from the records
of these voyages show the restrictions and formalities imposed by the Japa-
nese, and also the impressions of a first-hand observer.

The reader is reminded that a number of the documents are the work of
amanuenses who transcribed the originals for company records. This fact may
explain infelicitous or awkward constructions in language. In others, the un-

237

familiar diction which appears represents the contemporary patois and ter-
minology of the East-India trade, or of generally uneducated seamen whose
use of place names does not conform with that of modern geographies.

The editor herewith expresses his general thanks to the officers of the
indicated institutions, from which various documents have been borrowed,
for the many courtesies extended to him.

APPENDIX A

Broadsides on the East-India Trade and the
Restraining Bill Before Parliament

From the Bodleian Library Collection, Oxford University,

Folio 0658.

Prince Butler’s Tale*

Representing

The State of the Wooll-Case, or the East India
Case Truly Stated

When first the Indian Trade began
And Ships beyond the Tropicks ran,

In quest of various Drugs and Spices
And sundry other strange Devices,

Saltpetre, Drugs, Spice and like Trading,

Composed the bulk of all their Lading.

Bengals, and Silks, of Indians making.

Our Merchants then refus’d to take in.

Knowing it wou’d their Country ruin,

And might prove to their own undoing.

Nor did they carry Gold or Bullion,

To fetch home what Supplants our Woollen;

Nor were this Nation fond to wear
Such Indian Toys, which cost so dear:

Then were we dad in Woollen Stuffs,

With Cambrick Bands, and Lawn Ruffs,

Or else in Silk, which was Imported
For Woollen Goods, which we Exported;

Which Silk our English Weavers bought,

And into various figures wrought.

Then scarce a Child was to be seen,

Without Say Frock, that was of green.

Our Hangings, Beds, our Coats, and Gowns,

Made of our Wooll in Clothing Towns.

This Nation then was rich and Wealthy,

And in a State which we call’d healthy.

But since the men of Gath arose,

238

And for their chief Goliath chose,

And since that mighty Giants Reign,

Whose chiefest Aim was private Gain,

This Trade was drove on by such measures,

As soon exhausted much our Treasures.

For then our chiefest Artists went
With Patterns, and with Money sent.

To make and purchase Indian Ware

For which this nation pays full dear.

Then by great Gifts of finest touches.

The Lords and Ladies, Dukes and Duchess,

So far prevailed, as set the Fashion,

Which Plague-like soon spread o’er the Nation.
Our Ladies all were set a gadding.

After these Toys they ran a madding;

And nothing then wou’d please their fancies.
Nor Dolls, nor Joans, nor wanton Nancies,
Unless it was of Indians making;

And if 'twas so, *twas wondrous taking.

This Antick humour so prevail’d,

Tho' many ’gainst it greatly rail'd,

’Mongst all degrees of Female kind.

That nothing else could please their mind.

Tell 'em the following of such fashion,

Wou’d beggar and undo the Nation,

And ruin all our Labouring Poor,

That Must, or starve, or beg at door.

They’d not at all regard your story.

But in their painted Garments glory;

And such as were not Indian proof,

’They scorn’d, despis’d, as paltry Stuff:

And like gay Peacocks, proudly strut it.

When in our Streets along they foot it.

This humour strangely thus prevailing.

Set all the poorer sort a railing.

Or else with grief their Case bewailing.

The richer seeing what was doing,

And how the Nation ran to ruin.

To King in Council did complain,

In time of Charles the Second’s Reign.

The Case of the Joyners Company,

Against

The Importation of Manufactured CABINET-WORK
from the EAST-INDIES

WHEREAS great Numbers of Artificers, Members of the said Company,
have been bred up in the said Art or Mystery of making Cabinets, Scrutores,
Tables, Chests, and all other sorts of CABINET-WORK in England, in which
of late Years they have arrived to so great a Perfection, as exceeds all Europe .

BUT several Merchants, and others, Trading to the East-Indies, and to
several Ports and Places thereabouts, have procured to be made in London,
of late Years, and sent over to the East-Indies, Patterns and Models of all

239

sorts of Cabinet Goods; and have Yearly return’d from thence such great
Quantities of Cabinet -Wares, Manufactured there, after the English Fashion,
by our Models, that the said Trade in England is in great Danger of being
utterly Ruined, being ingross ’d by the said Merchants, and others, that Trade
to ana from those Parts, to so great a Degree, that they not only supply these
Kingdoms with such Commodities, so Imported, but also spoil the EX-
PORTATION of the said Joyners and Cabinet-Makers Work to Foreign
Parts, so that their Journey-men and Apprentices, in a manner, will be use-
less; which, if not timely prevented, will Reduce the said Joyners, Cabinet-
Makers, and Thousands of other Poor Artificers depending on them, as the
Carvers, Turners, Copper-Smiths, Glew -makers, Sawyers, &c. to a deplorable
Condition, who must perish for want of Work, or be maintain’d by their
several Parishes.

AND in lieu of abundance of Foreign Commodities, which the said
Joyners and Cabinet-Makers are obliged to use in their Trade, fhe English
Woollen Manufactures were Exported, so that the Kingdom in general were
Gainers thereby.

AND the Youth of this Nation, that now are, and daily come to Handy-
craft Trades, will be under the like Misfortune, if, when their Trades are
brought to Perfection, their Models are carried to India, and Manufactured
there.

THE following Goods, Manufactured in India, have been Imported within
these Four Years, viz. Two Hundred forty four Cabinets, Six Thousand five
hundred eighty two Tea-Tables, four hundred twenty eight Chests, Seventy
Trunks, Fifty two Screens, Five hundred eighty nine Looking-Glass Frames,
Six hundred fifty five Tops for Stands, Eight hundred eighteen Lacquer’d
Boards, Five hundred ninety seven Sconces, and Four thousand one hun-
dred twenty Dressing, Comb, and Powder Boxes.

Besides several Sales lately made, in which were great Quantities of the
said CABINET-WORK; as also in other Sales daily expected.

Wherefore ' tis hoped the Wisdom of this Honourable House will inter-
pose for the Relief of these poor Artificers, &c.

Ill

The Case of the Fann-Makers;

Who have Petitioned the Honorable House of Commons, against
the Importation of Fanns from the East-Indies

THE Petitioners are several Tradesmen, and Artificers, who are con-
cerned in the Manufacture of Fanns, in which great Numbers of Men,
Women and Children, used to be constantly Employed, some in making the
Sticks, Papers, Leathers, and in Ordering and Stitfning of the Silks, others in
Painting, Varnishing, and Japanning, and in preparing other Materials
wherewith Fanns are made, by which there used to be Yearly consumed great
Quantities of Silk, Paper, Leather, Wver, and several Tunns of Whale-bone,
Tortoise-shell, Ivory, Box, Ebony, ana other sorts of Wood, which were Im-
ported from Turky, Russia, and other Foreign Parts, to the Increase of His
Majesty's Customs, and to the great Benefit and Advantage of our Woollen
Manufacture, for which such Foreign Goods were bought in Exchange; so
that by the making of Fanns here at home, not only the Woollen Manufac-
ture, and the King’s Customs are greatly advanced, but abundance of Poor
People are continually kept at Work. All which Advantages to the Common-
wealth are now likely to De destroy’d, by the Importation of vast Quantities
of Fanns from the East-Indies, from whence there have been lately brought
over above a 130000, tho* scarce half that Quantity hath been Entred in the

24O

Custom-house, the rest having been Fraudulently conveyed on Shoar by the
Seamen and others, without paying any Duty; and as for the Duty which is
paid, 'tis but inconsiderable, in comparison of the Duty which arises from
the Commodities Imported from Turky, Russia, and other Foreign Parts,
which are consumed here about the Fanns; and besides formerly great Quan-
tities of our own Fanns have been Exported, for which a considerable Duty
used to be paid to the King; so that 'tis hoped that this Honourable House
will think fit to Prohibit the Importation of Indian Fanns, and Fan-sticks,
as well as Silks and Callicoes; for that thereby, not only the Woollen Manu-
facture, and His Majesty’s Customs are considerably Lessen’d and Impair’d;
but also Multitudes of Poor Artificers and their Families will be reduced to a
Deplorable Condition. And many of them for want of Work are already
become a Burthen to the several Parishes where they Inhabit,

The Case is since Re-
printed, and Sold by
A. Baldwin in War-
wick-Lane, London.

A Short Abstract of a Case which
was last Sessions presented to
the Parliament: Being a true
Relation of the Rise and
Progress of the East-India
Company, shewing how their
Manufactures have been, are,

AND WILL BE PREJUDICIAL TO THE

Manufactures of England,

AND WHAT ENDEAVOURS HAVE
BEEN USED FOR AND AGAINST ANY

Restrictions. Together with
some Remarks and Query’s

THEREON.

THat for several Years after the East-India Com-
pany was Establish’d, they were afraid to bring in
Manufactur’d Goods, which they knew were very prej-
udicial to our own: But now, by their great Stock and
Interest, they are got over these Fears, and bring in
vast quantities, opposing all kind of Restraint, tho
they are convinc’d, and nave declared their Manufac-
tures are prejudicial to this Kingdom.

That as their Manufactures increas’d, our own were
discouraged, and Wooll reduced so low, that an Act
was made for Burying in Woollen, and the Manufac-
turers at the same time reduced to great Necessities,
and many ruined thereby.

That during great part of the late War, the East
India Trade was under some Discouragement, and
while it was so, our English Manufactures flourished

241

This appears by a
Printed List, which
is Sold by Edw. Loyd
at his Coffee-House
in Lombard-street.

Vide Loyd’s List.
Near 2 Millions sent
to India.

very much, and extended to several Places, where, be-
fore the People were out of Employment, Wooll ad-
vanced, and bore a good Price, and all other Provisions
raised proportionably.

That the English Manufacturers finding the East -
India Traders endeavouring to get an Establishment
by Act of Parliament, and knowing how fatal it might
prove to their Manufactures, unless they were in some
measure restrain’d, made their Application to the Par-
liament, and in Two succeeding Sessions a Restraining
Bill was past in their Favour in the 'House of Com-
mons, and a. Third being drawn up in a different
Method to the Two former, was stopt thereupon.

That the Proposal of advancing Two Millions for
the Supply of the Government, was the great Induce-
ment for the Establishment of the New Company ; And
the Reasons the Manufacturers did not then so vigor-
ously complain and sollicite against the Establishment,
as formerly they had done, proceeded from the Fair
Promises given by the New East-India Men , and the
Hope of a more favourable Opportunity; being un-
willing to disturb the Loan, so necessary then to be
raised.

That fhe Manufacturers being deceived by these
East India Traders Fair Promises, and finding that the
late great Importation and Wear of their Indian Man-
ufactures are increasing, and have already, in a great
measure, ruin’d the Canterbury Trade, and obliged the
London Weavers to fall upon all sorts of Woollen
Manufactures, to the Prejudice (and may in a short
time prove to the utter Ruine) of several Places where
such Manufactures have for a long time been estab-
lished, are therefore come again to represent their De-
plorable Case, and Pray the Consideration of this
Parliament, and hope they will be pleased to consider
it as well as either the Old or New East-India Com-
panies Cases.

Remarks.

Since the Presenting the Case above mentioned.
There has from the 20th of May 1699, to the 4th of
September 1G99, arrived in England from the East-
Indies and China, Ten Ships, which have brought in
above Five Hundred Thousand Pieces of Manufac-
tured Goods, which are by very intelligent Persons,
computed to be worth about One Million of Pounds
Sterling, which vast quantity has already reduced the
Manufactures of this Kingdom (to which they are op-
posite) to a very low Price, which has in a great meas-
ure ruined the Manufactures in London, Norwich, and
in divers other Places, as is ready more fully to be
made appear.

That there is now gone to the East Indies and
China, Fifty Ships, which are computed at near 400
Tuns per Ship, one with the other, and by a modest
Computation are reckoned to have carried with them
near Two Millions of Bullion, which is about Forty
Thousand Pounds per Ship.

242

Five Millions of
Manufactures to be
brought in two
Years.

That all these Ships, or as great a number, are
expected and may make a Return in Two Years’ and
their Cargo may reasonably be supposed and valued
at Six Million , it being common to make about Treble
the First Cost. And it is reasonable to suppose that
Five Millions will be in Manufactures. And how far
this may further dammage and ruine the Trade of
this Kingdom, is submitted to consideration.

Query Is

Query 2 :

Vide Essay on prob-
able Methods of
making a People
Gainers by Trade,

p. 128.

Two Queries .

If the increase of the Woollen Manufactures in
Ireland was judged Prejudicial, and would inevitably
sink the value of the Lands in England and Ruin our
Trade; because the Irish could under- work, and so un-
der-sell us, as the Act for restraining that Trade sets
forth. Will not the East-India Manufactures do the
same, and deserve the Consideration of the Parliament,
as well as the Irish?

Whether the great Complaints made in Flanders,
and other Foreign Parts of the decay of their Linnen
Manufactures; and their setting up Woollen Manufac-
tures do not (as the Author of the Essay on Ways and
Means tell us) proceed from the expence of East-India
Linnens, which are here worn in their stead; and
whether their late Prohibition of our Woollen Manu-
factures, do not proceed more from that Cause, than
from the late Act made for the more effectual restrain-
ing the Importation of Flanders Lace?

Reasons Humbly Offered

To the Consideration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, On
Behalf of the BILL to Restrain the Wearing of East-
India and Persia Wrought Silks, 8cc.

THAT the Advocates for the East-India Company rather blind and amuse
the Matter controverted, than explain it; for the Dispute is not with or
against the Trade in general, but that Branch only which is certainly de-
structive to England in the Value of its Land, Productions, Manufactories,
Navigations, Land-carriages, and to the extream dispeopling thereof. All
which we have and can make good.

England's own Productions, is the Foundation of all its Wealth, Naviga-
tion and Merchandize; and the due Improvement thereof, especially in the
Wooll, is what ought to be principally regarded and promoted, and the
Packs in the Honourable House of Loras bespeak no less.

That England had never recovered the Mischiefs former great Importa-
tions of India wrought Silks brought upon us, had we not been beholden to
the Invention of Worsted Crapes, which for several Years was a universal
Fashion, and cut out the East-India Goods and recovered the Trade for
Wooll, when many Growers thereof at that first Invention, having Six, Eight,
some Ten Years Wooll before hand; and it did likewise greatly increase the
Trade in Number, that now want Employment both at London and other
Parts.

That English Wooll being first Improved by Manufactory in several

243

Counties and Towns, and afterwards by Navigation and Merchandize to Spain
and Italy , brings home unwrought Silks and Spanish Wooll, for the Employ-
ment both of Silk Weavers and Clothiers; which Spanish Wooll is again, with
our own, Manufactured and Exported to Turky and other Parts, and the
principal products thereof are raw Silk, and Grograin and Cotten Yarn, Un-
manufactured; which again Employes Multitudes of People, that, as well as
the former, live and consume the Productions of our own Lands.

That the passing this Bill into a Law, will in a few Years greatly increase
our numbers of People in this Kingdom, and will so invigorate the Minds of
all Fabricators both in Silk, Wooll, and Grograin Yarn, that have any thing
of Stock or Credit by Faith and Hope, to contend with all other Disadvan-
tages, tho’ Mony should be as scarce as at present; whereas the contrary will
discourage (those of great Ability) to that degree, that the Out-Parishes of
London, Tower-Hamblets , and all the Wooll Manufacturing Towns in Eng-
land, will not be able to support their Poor.

That East-India wrought Silks, Sec . is Destructive to all the before men-
tioned Advantages, to the Dispeopling of the Kingdom.

That nothing is so great and unnatural a force upon Trade, as sending
our Woollen Manufactures to East-India, in regard they are not worn there,
but sent to Persia; to the extream prejudice of our Turky Merchants and
that Trade. So that the Consumption of Woollen Manufactories is not in-
creased thereby.

That the more wrought Silks comes from East-India, the less raw Silk doth
come both from India and Turky; and nothing is so valuable an Exchange
for our Gold and Silver as raw Silk.

That the passing this Bill will give the East-India Trade either to the
Scotch or Dutch, is so Frivolous as deserves no Answer, for it must produce
the quite contrary Effect.

That our Entertainment of so many thousand Strangers argues a necessity
for passing the Bill, unless we intend to maintain them without Working, or
Starve them.

That whatever Reasons induced the French King to part with his Weav-
ing Subjects, ’tis plain, that whilst he had them, he took great Care for their
Preservation; for by his Edict 26th of October 1686. He not only Prohibited
the Wearing all sorts of East-India Silks and Callicoes; but likewise under a
severe Mulct, forbid the Imitation of figured and flowered Silks, by Printing
or Staining any thing in likeness thereof, and under the same Penalty com-
manded all them Prints and Tools for so doing, to be utterly demollished,
and never to be made again. By which tis plain that King had another
Opinion of this Trade and People, then the East-India Doctor, that in his
Superfine Spun Linse*woollse Discourse would render it otherwise to us.

That part of the Act for Navigation looks strangely Unreasonable if this
Bill deserves not to Pass, when for the sake and profit only of Throwing and
Dying of Silk, 'tis prohibited so to be brought both from East-India and sev-
eral other Parts, for the Weaving part thereof is at least four times the Value
to England than both Dying and Throwing is.

That Manufacturing of Silk is as Reasonable and as Natural, and no more
Foreign to England than to France, Holland or Flanders, tho’ of later attain-
ment; and it being so greatly benefiical (as it certainly is) deserves and
requires to be the more tenderly Cherisht and Supported.

That at the price Provisions sell in England, 'tis impossible for English
Manufacturers, either Clothiers, Silk Weavers or Silk Throwsters, to work
Cheaper than they do.

That ’tis the Interest of all Fabricators, to Work and Sell as Cheap as
they can Afford, and Trade will in that Case certainly adjust it self, and they
that do not will Suffer for it: But we believe not, that our Noble Ancestors
plac’d the Wooll-packs just under the Throne, to make Wooll as little worth
as it possibly could.

Tnat neither Italian, French, or Dutch Silks can prejudice us in our

pr.ATE 2 1 Early European Impressions of Oriental Acrobats and
Freaks. From Joan Nieuhoff, Die Gesandtschaft der Ost-Indischen
Geselschaft ... an den Tartarischen Cham und nunmehr auch
Sinischen Keyser, Amsterdam, 1669.

plate 22 Flemish Lace Showing Influence of the East-India Trade, c. 1700. By permission of the
Victoria and Albert Museum Collection.

plate 23 Polychrome Delft Tiles, Manufac-
tured c. 1700. By permission of the Rijks Mu-
seum, Amsterdam , Holland .

plate 24 The Island of Deshima in Nagasaki Harbor, Japan, to
which European traders were restricted. Frqin a print in the Pea-
body Museum , Sale?n , Massachusetts. See page 237.

plate 25 Altar
mural in Church
of the Ascension,
New York, by
John La Farge,
with background
sketched in Ja-
pan. See page 44.

Trades, so much as India Silks will and does, we Working upon more equal
Terms with them.

That Passing this Bill may occasion the East-India Company to Import
the more China and Bengal raw Silks and Cotten Yarn, to the greater Em-
ployment of Shipping and our Manufacturers, which the other will destroy.

That the Great Mogul will be no more displeased at this, than the Great
Turk was, when those Merchants left bringing over Turky Manufactured
Silk, Hair Grograins and Tammies (which in our Memory were the general
Wear of our Grandmothers and Mothers) and now instead thereof import us
only raw Silk Grograin and Cotten Yarn to Englands great Advantage.

That what is commonly called East-India Silk, the principal Substance
with which it is made, is their fine Cotton-Yarn, of which sort of Yarn the
Company never brought much, if any unwrought; and it being softer in
feeling than our English Worsted, better gratifies the Fancies of our nice
Females. And except in that respect, our Grazetts and Autherines are as good
a wear as they, if made to the Value. And these India Silks, are by the Draper
or Mercer, sold as dear, or dearer than English Silks or Stuffs.

That skilful Seamen are made by our Newcastle and Coasting Trade, in
such small Vessels as are continually plying, to serve our numerous Manu-
facturers with Coals, Corn, Butter and Cheese and other Necessaries, whilst
Trading to India, consumes them more than in an ordinary manner; and if
it be for the sake of their bringing wrought Silks, they'll dye in a bad Cause;
for in respect to Navigation, raw Silk from Turkey, is five times more bulky
than wrought from India.

That if for the gain of the East-India Company, our Manufactures must
be destroyed, or work at their Prices, that have all the necessaries for Life,
six times as cheap as England can afford, and want neither Cloaths nor Fuel;
the value of Land, and all its productions and Rents, must sink answerably
thereto.

That we cannot believe, that good Policy for England which is for Hol-
land, they living in a small spot of Ground, are obliged in reason to leave
Trade more free, and lay their Taxes on the Consumers only: But we that
are blest with a large Tract of fruitful Land, rich Mines, productive and
laborious Cattle, convenient Ports and Navigable Rivers, must with the Man-
ufacturing our own Productions improve our Land, by feeding our People,
support our Trade, Traflick, Navigation and Land-Carriage, and by all Law-
ful ways encrease our People; and if for the sake of any one of these, the
others are prejudiced, the Publick must suffer Diminution thereby; but if in
Conjunction all are Advanced, this, and this only, will procure a healthful
Constitution in the Body Politick; and when the other parts of the World
can agree on a free Trade, it will be time for us to consider; and till then,
make the best Improvement of the Blessings of Almighty God.

That the Sentiments of that great Member of the East-India Company,
Sir Josiah Child, may judge betwixt us in the 43d Page of his Discourse con-
cerning Trade, says. That whatsoever advances the value of Land in purchase,
That improves the Rent of Farmes,

That encreaseth the bulk of Foreign Trade,

That multiplies Domestick Artificers,

That inclines the Nation to Thriftiness,

That employs the Poor,

That encreaseth the stock of the People, must be procuring causes of
Riches.

We shall conclude with the undeniable Maxim, of the said Sir Josiah,
which he lays down in his Preface to the said Book.

That a Foreign Expence, especially of Foreign Manufactures, is the worst
Expence a Nation can be inclinable too, and ought to be prevented as much
as possibly.

245

[The East-India Company’s Rebuttal]

Five Queries Humbly Tender’d, Relating to
the Bill for Prohibiting the Consumption
of East-India Silks, Bengals and Printed
Callicoes.

I. Why Should East-India Silks and Bengals be Prohibited which to the
Nation are Three Times as Cheap again as Dutch , French and Italian Silks.

II. Why East-India Silks, Bengals and Printed Callicoes , that Pay Twenty
per Cent. Customs more than Dutch and Italian Silks, and Five times the
Freight of Dutch, French and Italian Silks.

III. Why Persia Silks Purchased with English Cloth and Stuffs more than
Dutch, French and Italian Silks bought with our Money.

IV. Why should Painted Callicoes from India be Prohibited, when We
must in their Room Print Dutch, French or German Linnens, which will
Cost the Nation Three Times the Price.

V. Why should we Enrich our Neighbours by Prohibiting East-India Silks
and wearing of theirs, when at one time or other they may Employ the Costs
of those Silks against Us.

VII

[An Earlier French Decree Restricting the Trade]

A Decree of the Kings Counsel of State, con-
cerning Cotten Linnen-Cloth, Printed in
East-India, or Painted in the Kingdom; and
other China and India Silks, Stuffs, and
Flower’d with Gold and Silver.

Given the 26th of October, 1686. Extracted out of the
Register of the Council of State.

The King being informed, That the great quantity of Cotten Linnen-
Cloth, printed in East-India, or painted in the kingdom, and other China
and India Silk, Stuffs, and Flower’d with Gold and Silver, have not only
given occasion of Transporting out of the Kingdom many Millions, but also
have diminished the Manufactures of old established in France, for the mak-
ing of Silk, Woollen, Linnen and Hcmp-Stuffs; and at the same time the
Ruin and Destruction of the Working-People, who by want of Work, having
no Occupation nor Subsistance for their Families, are gone out of the King-
dom. The which being needful to provide a Remedy for, and for that effect
to hinder the Course and Sale in the Kingdom of the said painted Linnen-
Cloth, and India and China Silks and Stuffs, nevertheless granting to the
Owners a reasonable time that they may sell them; Having heard the Report
of Monsieur le Pelletier, Counsellor Ordinary of the King’s Royal Counsel,
and Comptroller-General of the Finances; his Majesty in his Counsel hath
ordered, and doth order. That from the beginning of the Day of the Publi-
cation of the present Declaration, all the Manufactures established in the

246

Kingdom for Painting of the White Cotten Linnen-Cloth shall be abolished,
and the Moulds serving to the Printing of them shall be broke and destroy’d.
His Majesty doth forbid, most expresly, the re-establishing thereof; also to
his Subjects the Painting of the said Linnen-Cloth; and to the Engravers the
making of any Moulds, serving to the said Impression, under the Penalty of
losing the said Cloths, Moulds and other Utensils, and three thousand Livers
Fine, personally paid and without diminution; one third part to the In-
former, the second part to the Hospitals of the Place, and the third to the
Farmers of the Revenue. And as concerning the painted Linnen-Cloth, and
other China and India Silk, Stuffs, and Flower’d with Gold and Sdver, his
Majesty hath granted, and doth grant (to the last of December 1687, next)
to the Merchants and others, the Permission of Selling them as they shall
think fit: The said time being expired, his Majesty doth forbid to all Per-
sons, of what Quality and Condition whatsoever they are, the Exposing and
the Selling thereof; and to the Particulars the Buying thereof, doth order.
That those found in all Ware-Houses and Shops shall be burnt, and the
Proprietors condemned to the like Fine of three thousand Livers, paid as
abovesaid. His Majesty doth permit, nevertheless, the Entry, Sale and Retail,
of the said White Linnen Cloth in his Kingdom, paying by them the Taxes,
according to the Declaration of the Counsel the 30th April last, which shall
be executed; and that of the 15th of the present Month, to the last of
December, 1687, next Year. His Majesty doth command to the Lieutenant of
the Policy of the City of Paris , and to the Intendants and Commissaries of
the Provinces and Generaltics of the Kingdom, to cause the present Decla-
ration to be executed, being published and affixed in all the Places where
need shall he, th.it no Body should be ignorant thereof. Done in the King’s
State-Council held at Fontainbleau, the 26th Day of October, 1686.

Signed COQVILLE

APPENDIX B

[Abstract of a Letter from the British Consul in New York to
Lord Carmarthen. of the East India Company. East Indian
Office, London. Home Miscellaneous Series, Volume 337]

New York the 3d of April 1788

My Lord,

Inclosed is duplicate of the Letters I had the honor of writing to your
Lordship by the Speedy on the 5th of March; since which, no Packet hath
arrived from England, nor hath any Occurrence taken place in this Country,
worthy your* Lordship’s particular Notice or Attention. The States which
have not yet in Convention deliberated upon the proposed New Constitution,
continue in great party heats; and those which have, by small majorities,
ratified the same, have violent minorities raging against it, which leave it a
matter still of doubt, whether ever the said Constitution will take place to
any purpose, if at all, in this distracted Country.

Observing the Number of Ships and Vessells that have made Voyages from
these States to India, and the many more that are preparing to Import Tea
& other Articles from the East, I lately desired a Gentleman in whom I place
much Confidence, to take a suitable opportunity of asking a principal Mer-
chant in this City, who is largely concerned in India Voyages, Whether he
was not apprehensive that the Markets of this Country would be overdone
with Tea & other Articles from India? The Answer was, “By no means” for,
“Whatever we import from India more than is Wanted here, we can readily
dispose of in England and Ireland”! “I sent (said this Merchant) 250 Chests

247

of Tea to England last October, and they sold very well’'! Of this being a fact
I now have no doubt, though I was much surprized at hearing of it; If thus,
the Vending of Tea and other Articles of India, brought from thence in
American bottoms, be, as I shd. think it must be, detrimental to bur India
Company, to the Navigation, and to the general Commerce of the Nation, it
would not, I apprehend, be difficult to prevent such Importations from this
Country; but however that may be, I think it my duty to lay this Annecdote
before your Lordship, ...

Your Lordship’s most faithful,
and obedient Servant.

j. TEMPLE

[Copy of a Letter from John Ross, a British Merchant at Gi-
braltar, to an Official of the East India Company, dated
July 15, 1804. East India Office, London. Home Miscella-
neous Series , Volume 337]

Dear Sir,

This letter will treat on a subject that I conceive if properly followed up
may be the means, when removed, of very beneficial Interests to the Com-
merce and Navigation of Great Britain. And as you continue Chairman for
part thereof it is left to you whether it can or ought to be made or entered
into as a National consideration. On the commencement of the late Spanish
war the Americans traded considerably from America to the Spanish Islands
and Settlements in the West Indies and South America, as well on their own
account as on Spanish account, being well paid for it and brought the
produce of South America and its Islands to different parts of Europe— a
great deal to old Spain but more considerable parcels to the different shores
of the Mediterranean. This trade was apparently carried on for American
account and to avoid our Navigation pnze law. They went so far as to unload
the Spanish produce in North America, transfer the property in a public
manner by Sale or otherwise, and afterwards carry it to Spain to its original
destination as well as to all parts of Italy and the Levant. This part of the
Navigation I fancy they could not be deprived of when the property ap-
peared ostensively to belong to themselves. This Trade is yet considerably
followed up but as we have now no right to interfere therein, it may or may
not be an object for further consideration in a future war with Spain. Their
distant produce found on board Neutrals should be confined to be destined
to the Country the Neutral belongs to for his Consumption. This was only
done in part by our Prize Act— an American should not be permitted to
carry Havannah Sugars, Buenos Ayras Hydes &c in time of War to a distant
Market from his own Country for Sale.

The principal object and the most serious one I shall now treat on.
Previous to the commencement of the late War with France in 1793 and for
some Years afterwards, Britain supplied not only the European part but also
the Barbary Shores of the Mediterranean and chiefly from Britain with all
East India produce whatever, by which means some thousand Tons of Ship-
ping were employed and the Trade by returns must I fancy have been very
interesting to those concerned in it. The War spreading after to the Italian
and other States of the Mediterranean checked the British Navigation and
the Mass of Commerce and Carriage has since been carried on by the Ameri-
cans. The facility by which the Americans procure their products in the East
Indies may yet be unknown and I am not competent to explain it fully; but
such part as has come to my knowledge I will now relate— The Americans

Eroceed not only from the different parts of America with a ,good many
•ollars and North American produce suitable to the different (chiefly) British

248

parts or Settlements in the East Indies. They buy there from the Company’s
servants such Goods as are supposed not suitable for the British Markets (but
I believe to this I may add they also buy equally such Goods as are suitable)
and such if they had not bought them would have found their way to Britain
in British Navigation and from Britain to the Mediterranean. However they
buy as a cover a small part of their Cargo from the Company’s Servants—
they afterwards contrive to agree for other parts with the Natives on the
Coast where there are few or no Europeans and after having completed their
Cargo they at times go back to America, from thence to the Mediterranean,
or come direct from the East Indies hither. It has been here very customary
of late to make large collections of Dollars for the Americans returning out
of the Mediterranean to call for them, and from hence they go many of them
direct to the East Indies. One we had lately consigned to us destined to Ben-
coolen for a Cargo of Pepper; part he was to buy of the European Factory
and the rest being acquainted he was to agree with the Natives and meet
them and receive from them on the coast the remainder of his Cargo in a
Contraband or Clouded way. It is really incredible the American Navigation
at present to the Mediterranean chiefly with East and West India producers.
We have had several called in here from the Red Sea, the Cape of Good
Hope, St. Helena &c &c with East India Cargoes— all gone up the Mediter-
ranean and the Americans being now so used to the Trade, as they pay a
greater price to the Factories or Settlements that they find means to trade
entirely with the Natives and those who, I believe I may say, are considered
under the protection of the British East India Company. East India Pepper
for months past has been used here as low as 88 / st. per Eng. Cwt; Mocha
Coffee direct from Mocha at about 100 /. Considerable quantities of low
priced Muslins and Callicoes and some hundred thousand pieces of Nan-
keens with a variety of Drugs and other articles.— Now to remedy this and to
encourage the British Navigation and Commerce, would it not be right to
follow the Spaniards plan— that is, all strange Vessels whatever in time of
peace that are found trading with the Islanders or with those on the Conti-
nent of South America are confiscable unless that trade is carried on by par-
ticular Licence and from a public port of Trade. It is very probable that the
Americans in the East Indies receive every sort of encouragement and con-
veniency from the British Forts and Settlements where they go to Trade—
and as this Trade has been only carried into effect but a very few Years and
it now appears very considerable indeed— if it goes on to increase it may
affect materially the Interest of Great Britain. I leave this subject to your
serious consideration, to treat on in any manner you think proper, with this
addition, that I do not wish to be called on to substantiate facts in any way
whatever. If you however should consider it of national importance and it is
taken up as a subject by the East India Directors, it may probably turn out
beneficial to them and to us to have an East Indian store established here
of such products not suitable for Britain that might come here direct in
British Navigation and be sold in the Mediterranean. However this is a large
object; too much so for us to have any chance of a direction.

I am Sec

JOHN ROSS

III

[Extract from a Letter of Sir Alexander John Ball, Governor
of Malta, to J. Turnbull, Esq., dated March 18, 1806.
East India House, London. Home Miscellaneous Series ,
Volume 439]

Dear Sir,

In the course of my enquiries into the sources of Commerce in the Medi-
terranean, I have been informed, that the Americans have lately entered into

249

a speculation, that may prove very prejudicial to the interest of the East
India Company unless it be soon counteracted. They load with opium at
Smyrna, which they carry direct to China, and undersell us. In two or three
years we shall entirely lose this branch of Commerce. Would it not be policy
in our East India Directors to represent to the Chinese Government, that the
Cargos of the Americans from the Levant may contain the seeds of the
plague, and cause an irreparable calamity to the Empire, and that the only
remedy for it is not to permit cargos from the Levant in American bottoms,
that have not been landed in America and performed a rigid Quarantine?
If they be allowed to perform a quarantine m the Mediterranean they will
go to some Ports in Italy, where they can purchase clean Bills of Health
without having performed the rules prescribed by the Quarantine Laws. If
we can get this established, we shall then trade with the American upon
nearly equal terms.

The Americans are beginning to undersell us in the West India Produce.
I think I perceive the day fast approaching, when we shall deem it good
policy to allow English Ships to sail direct for the Levant to China with
opium and other Articles, and perform the quarantine in their Ports, and
that we shall likewise grant licenses to English Ships to carry our West India
Produce direct from there to the Mediterranean on paying a sum, that may
prove a source of Revenue. This would be a popular measure with our
Planters, and unless something similar be adopted, in a very short time there
will not be a loaf of our Sugar consumed in the Mediterranean except at
Gibraltar and Malta.

[Signed] ALEXR. JN. BALL

[Abstract of a Letter from Captain Welden, Late Com-
mander of a Ship in the East India Company's Service, to
the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the East India
Company. East India Office, London. Home Miscella-
neous Series , Volume 706]

Encloses an exposition of the contraband Trade in Teas, from the United
States to the British American Provinces from information collected by him-
self on the Spot in 1820 and during a second visit in 1823.

An extensive and lucrative contraband Trade in Teas and India & China
Manufactures has long been carried on by Merchants of the United States
with the Canadas, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia— is now systematized and
increased to a degree highly injurious to the Revenue— discouraging to the
British Merchants & Ship-Owners, detrimental to the interest of the East
India Company, and augmenting the Revenues, extending the Commerce,
and enriching the Merchants of the United States.

The American Merchants supply the Colonies with Teas, and the Manu-
factures of China at half the price the regular dealer can procure them from
England.

When, by the late War, the illicit trade was interrupted, the poor people
were obliged to substitute Coffee for Tea. Since the peace they have returned
to Tea and the consumption of Coffee has gradually decreased in proportion
as the facilities for smuggling, increased.

In 1820, Captain Welden was informed that small quantities of Teas &c
were imported from England, to mask a much larger illicit importation from
the United States, without which the retail dealer could not gain a liveli-
hood. To investigate the subject thoroughly, he proceeded to the frontier

250

Stations: where he witnessed a daily traffic carried on between the two Coun-
tries to a very great extent and with great facility and security. The boundary
line is too extensive to be guarded— and during a great portion of the Year
an impenetrable fog screens the Smuggler.

The river St. John affords the utmost facility for carrying on an illicit
traffic &c from Boston &c. with New Brunswick.

On a second Survey of the boundary lines in 1823, he was astonished at
the increase and systematic conduct of the trade from Boston, and from New
York in particular, which presents a frontier of 400 miles. Teas are conveyed
by the grand Western Canal uniting the Atlantic with Lakes Erie and
Ontario.

The small Town of Buffalo on Lake Erie was destroyed in 1813. In 1823
it had risen from its ashes and assumed the appearance of an old established
Commercial place— Every Store is a Tea Warehouse, ^nd every Storekeeper a
Smuggler supplying the British Coast of Lake Erie with Contraband Goods,
whence they are forwarded to the remotest parts of Upper Canada.

Rochester on the Genesee River, two miles above its junction with Lake
Ontario, 8 years ago consisted only of a few log houses— the Western Canal
came to its doors — and now Warehouses and a busy population cover a large
extent, depending chiefly on an illicit trade with the opposite Shores of Lake
Ontario.

In July 1823 several thousand Chests had been brought to Rochester by
the Canal and the Niagara River, without any land carriage.

Lake Champlain running Northwaid a considerable distance into Lower
Canada, affords convenience for Smuggling Teas &c particularly from New
York and Boston.

The extent of the illicit Trade will appear from a comparison of the
lawful importations with the estimated annual consumption.

The legal importation of Teas into Canada on an average of 9 years from
1814 to 1822 is 270,540 lbs per annum. In 1814 the quantity was 487,376 lbs
and gradually decreased till 1822 when only 134,379 lbs were entered. Up to
August 1823, only 373 Chests had been entered; and the legal importation
was not expected to exceed in that year 500 Chests or about 33,000 lbs. The
consumption is estimated at 12,000 Chests per annum, the average legal im-
portation is only 4,000 Chests, so that 8000 Chests must be smuggled each
year.

The legal importation into New Brunswick from 1816 to 1822 has been
620 Chests per Annum:— the consumption is estimated at 2,000 Chests, so
that 1,400 must be smuggled.

The legal importation into Nova Scotia from 1818 to 1823 has been 1,100
Chests per Annum: the consumption is estimated at 2,500 Chests— thus 1,400
must be smuggled.

The value of Silks, Nankeens &c— smuggled into the British provinces is
estimated at £100,000 Currency, or £90,000 Sterling.

The above estimates are from Customs Books &c but combining this with
intelligence collected in circuit exceeding 3,000 Miles from Public Officers,
& from persons engaged in the illicit Trade, Capt. Welden calculates that
16,000 Chests of Tea at least, and Silks &c to the amount of 500,000 Dollars
are annually smuggled into the provinces,— & it will increase with the rapid
Increase of population.

If measures be not adopted to rescue the Trade from its present course
before it is so organised and established as to leave no hope of it again flow-
ing in a legal Channel, the consequences will be fatal. America derives from
this sourQe a Revenue of £90,000 per annum. The Trade employs 2,500 Tons
of her Shipping, besides the Vessels employed in Smuggling to the injury of
the Navigation of England. The Americans have represented to the Chinese,
that England being incapable of carrying on this Trade with the Colonies
or Foreign Europe, has relinquished it to them.

251

APPENDIX C

[Regulations of the Canton Trade. From the Journal of
Captain Benjamin Shreve, Shreve MSS., Peabody Mu-
seum, Salem, Massachusetts]

The following remarks were furnished me by Edward W. Waldo who was
Clerk to Capt. Thomas W. Ward to Canton in the Minerva.

On arrival off Macao, you will procure a Chinese Pilot at that Island,
and be obliged to pay him in advance Forty to Sixty dollars, which is “old
Custom.” He is generally an ignorant fisherman, totally unacquainted with
sailing your vessel, and to be trusted no further than to direct you to avoid
“Chow Chow” water.

Your vessel remains at Whampoa, thirteen miles from Canton Factories,
to which you will proceed in the Ship's pinnace: on getting there you will
provide yourself as soon as convenient with a Factory, and after a day or two,
select the Hong Merchant, who is to “secure” your Ship and Cargo, and do
your business. ... It would be prudent however with them, to keep youi
Specie under your own control. Consequa is the most of a Gentleman, of any
of his Countrymen, knows more of European Manners and Customs and
formerly did the Business for most of the Southern Typans, but has since
lost credit, and become poor: he will give you better satisfaction in his
Dining parlour than in his Hong. Kingqua is a new man, and when I was
there was a Silk Merchant out of the Hong. He has been “squeezed” until
he is now very poor and but little known. After securing with one of them,
you will contract with him for sale and purchase of your Cargo, Teas,
Nankins, Silks, Sc Cassia.

You should be cautious to stipulate for his Chop on all goods purchased
out of the Hong, and need not let him know the amount of specie you have
for these purchases. You mention in your Contract prices for the Goods and
may make penalties for non-performance. Teas are purchased on long Credit,
ana is the article the Hong Merch* best likes to sell you (you will of course
speak often of “Tea Pigeon”). It requires a long acquaintance to ascertain its
quality, and you must rely in a great measure on the Honour of your Hong
Merchant for its goodness. But see well to its weight & packing yourself.
There is generally a great quantity of old Teas in Market, which can be

purchased at half, or even less price. These sell in our Market almost as well

as the best. They must be skin and black teas only. Green soon loses its fine
flavour by age (if you except young Hyson not over a year old). There will
be much of this trash in the Market now after Three Years war, which you
must be careful not to get palmed on to you for good. Nankeens are pur-
chased on a credit of three or four months, unless much in demand, when
they command the cash— You purchase them by their chop which is ex-
tremely various, they usually permit you to select what pleases you best, first
Chop two thirds, second chop one third. You should unroll the package for
inspection, and see the inner pieces are as good as the outer.

Nankeens vary in price very much, often a few American arrivals at

Macao enhance the price 10 pet for a few days. Silks you must order soon
after arrival, as it takes two months to manufacture them, they are always
a Cash article. Sinchows, a kind peculiar to China, a strong, thick silk, and a
staple article always. Satins — Lustrings & Sarsnets, single width and double
width. They may be Black— Coloured Sc Fancy. You must critically examine
these goods, and refuse all that are not of the proper Quantity and Quality.

252

Cassia Lignen, you always want for dunnage— and you only get that, which
is new Sc fresh, packed in all sizes to fill every inch of your vessel. These are
the staple goods you procure from the Hong Merchant, for your Cargo, and
generally of a better quality and higher price than what you purchase of
China St. Merchants. These fellows are nearly all Sharpers and Rogues, but
you will find yourself almost endued with new senses, after awhile, to detect
their roguery. You purchase of them China Ware, Silks, Nankeens, Teas, &c.
Sinchong is the great Porselain Merchant, you purchase your principal ware
of him. Satins, Sinchows, Sewing Silks, Crapes, Lustrings, Sarsnets, and a great
variety of other silks you can purchase much cheaper (than of the Hong) of
Eshing, Washing , Namchong, and a great number of China Street Silk Mer-
chants. These kinds suit our market much better than the higher priced, and
will always answer your private trade to more profit. Sewing silk should be
soft, and not hard twisted, put up in pound and not Catty bunches. With
respect to the fancy Sarsnets the more flimsy the better for our market when
thin Silks are no objection. You make contracts with these people, & take
from them “Musters,” which you keep to confront with their goods when
produced. You should well examine their quality and quantity and refuse all
not as good as warranted. I found Eshing perfectly honest and honourable
in all my dealings with him, but still trusted only to myself. The rest with
a few exceptions were “Quisi.” You can purchase of any of them Lackered
Ware, Tortoise Shell Combs, Cassia, Grass Cloth, Hkfs, Umbrellas, Straw
Carpeting, Artificial Flowers, Beads, Fine Paintings of Botany and Natural
History, Silk vests— sprigged with silver & gold, and a thousand little ar-
ticles that can be purchased cheap, and sell well here. My lackered Ware sold
for two hundred per cent. The articles most wanted are Tea Caddies at a
dollar. Backgammon Boards same price, Dice, Segar Boxes half a dollar &
seventy five cents— Loose Boxes, same— Fish Counters, same— Wine stands
twelve cents and small articles to fill up the packages— they may be Black or
Red. Silk vests ready made— such as you have seen in Havana worn by Span-
iards, could be purchased for Eighty Cents, and sold here for two dollars Sc
half. Straw Carpeting that will fill up the wings of your vessel— cost seven
dollars for twenty-five yards— sold for twenty. Artificial flowers— wreaths—
Beads 8c c sold at still greater profit, and so will Books of Botany Sc Natural
History— and many other articles not remembered. The prices of articles
when I was there weie very high. Nankeens ist Chop Fifty four and a half
dollars. . . , The second chop are less price than the first but sell equally
well here, of course you get as many of them as possible.

Silks— Sinchows 30 yds $16.50 per piece. Satins 1st Chop 20 yds $19. 2nd
Chop 30 yds $19. Lustring 30 yds $15. Sarsnets 30 yds $14.50—15 yds $7.25.
These prices are for Hong goods— of course the very .best quality. At the
same time out of the Hong Sinchows $15. Lustrings $13, Sarsnets $12. Crapes
$7 to $9. Sewing silk $3.50 per lb and other silk Goods in proportion.

Be very careful to get all your silks edged with white instead of Reds.

The currency of Canton is

10 Candareens make 1 Mace

10 Mace “ 1 Tale

Weights 100 Catties make a Picul of i$p/2 lb.

You can bring Tale into Dollars by adding two Cyphers and dividing
by 72.

Salem March 16, 1805

253

[A Modest Adventure. From the Shreve Papers, Peabody
Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, Relating to the Voyage
of the Governor Endicott to Canton, 1819-21]

Salem, May 5, 1819

Mr. Shreve,

I send by you thirty four Dollars, and would thank you to buy for Mrs.
Tucker, the following.

4 Turtle Shell Combs

Flat / 3 doz. large size blue & white tone China

Plates L4 doz. 2nd size do. do. do. f ®

In case the Dollars sent should not be enough to buy the above, then get
only so much China Ware as there be Money to pay for, besides the Cost of
the Combs. And oblige Yr. Aff.

GIDEON TUCKER

If there should be money left after buying the above, and enough to pay
for another dozen Plates, then please get 1 dozen large size Plates.

c. T.

[Supplementary Letter]

Mr. Shreve,

I send sixteen Dollars more which please add to the $34 delivered you
this morning, to purchase the articles for Martha.

'I am &c.

May 5

III

G. T.

[A Typical Investment of American Capital. From the Gerry
Papers, Marblehead Historical Society, Massachusetts]

MEMORANDUM NO. 1.

An order addressed to Capt. Sami. R. Gerry Master of the Ship Cowper,
for an investment at Calcutta, on account of Daniel P. Parker which is to be
varied in the quantity of some of the articles according to circumstantial or
conditional instructions as stated below.

Dollars

2,500 —In Salt Petre. Buy the sd quality of this article. If the price
should be over Seven and three fourths Rupees per maund I prefer
your omitting this article unless it is necessary to have it for ballast,
or unless you hear of war in Europe— should you omit the purchase
of Salt Petre on my account, you will of course increase the invest-
ment in other articles.

2,000 —In Indigo. Buy the medium qualities say that which will cost 60/
to 110/ Rupees per maund, the best bargains are made in broken
Indigo of strong copper colours of medium qualities. The Oude
which is of the most inferior quality you will not buy at any price,
and you will omit this order altogether if the prices should be 10 pr.
cent above the prices named above.

4jooo —In Cowhides. Buy the full amount of this article unless a great
advance has taken place since Jan’y 1830. Green [?] Salted hides are
the safest article, all hides should be bought with great care and
caution. In buying green salted hides care should be taken to ascer-
tain that they are real green salted hides, as Dry hides cured with
Cherram are sometimes ofFered as green salted. The Deca hides are
not so valuable, and are usually very unequal in quality, great care

254

should be taken to have the hides packed in such a manner as to
preserve them on the passage, from damage by worms or heat.

1.000 —In Goat Skins. Buy Madras, Patna or Calcutta giving the prefer-
ence in the order I insert them, if you are obliged to buy Calcutta,
reject the small ones, they are of little value.

1,200 —In Gingei. Buy the full extent of this order provided the price is
not above 4 cents pr. lb. on board, and buy $600 at the current
price.

2.000 —In Gum Shellac. Liver and Orange, but principally orange, omit
a part if the price should be very high, only about 30 or 35 cents in
this market can be calculated on, notwithstanding it is much higher
at this time.

ipoo —In Gum Copal. You may calculate this article will be worth 25 or
30 cents in America, and if the price in Calcutta will allow it to be
laid down in Boston with $25 pr. ton height Duties &c added at
the above prices you need not fear to buy the articles, but if very
high at Calcutta, omit it — 30 Rupees per Maund is a very high
price— 20 or 24 is the usual price.

1,200 —In Gunny Bags. I have put down $1,200 in this article which it
may be well to invest unless you should obtain freight at $25 per
Ton to fill the Ship without buying them, in which case only you
may omit them and invest the amount in some other articles. Part
in Bales and part for stowage between decks.

300 —In Munjeet. You will buy this article unless you can fill the Ship
without it, it should be secured into Hhds. or compressed into
Bales, first a cotton wrapper and a Gunny bag over. You will need
some of this article in strong bags with cane poles, to lay your cargo
on, and to dunnage at the sides and between decks.

500 —In Senna Leaves good quality

500 —In Tumeric Tf you buy these articles, buy

300 —In Sal Ainoae no more than is put down

300 —In Malabar Cardam against the several articles.

300 —In Gum Arabic ’ I mean $30— more or less de-

300 —In Gum Senegal pending on the prices and

300 —In Crude Borax >our wants to fill the ship.

300 —In Blue Galls .

Balance of my funds in silk goods as under viz.—

14 in small choppas (good quality) 45/ or 50/ Rupees for 20 ps.

1/2 in Medium size choppas fair quality 80/ or 100/ Rupees for 20 ps.

14 in Medium Bandannas assoited say 90/ or no/ Rupees for 20 ps.

y2 chocolate

14 reds

i/8 yellow

i/s blue

Silks should be packed in cases of about 40 pieces each assorted.

APPENDIX D

The Yankee Sailor and His Adventures

[John Poll. From William Bentley MS. Miscellanies , Ameri-
can Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts]

While at Mocha, I had many interviews with John Pori, or Poll, who was
a boy belonging to the Ship Essex, Captain Joseph Orne of Salem, which

255

[The Canton Trade During a Sample Year. From the Augustine Heard MSS., Baker Library, Cambridge, Mass.]
Statement of the American Trade with the Port of Canton Season 1832 8c 33

256

257

vessel having been cut off and all her crew murdered, has for a long time
interested the feelings of the American publick. His story is as follows. The
vessel arrived at Aden for information; here Cap4 Orne found an English-
man, who informed him, that no Coffee was to be procured at Mocha; but
advised him to go up to Loheia, and at the same time offered his services as
pilot & interpreter; Captain Orne influenced by this advice, accepted his
offer, and proceeded to Loheia, where he arrived without stopping at Mocha,
& succeeded in procuring some Coffee, but not enough ior a Cargo, on which
account, after lying there two months, he had determined to go down to
Mocha. On the day previous to his intended departure, he had a dispute
with the Xeriff Mahmoud, the Governour or petty prince of Loheia. The
Xeriff demanded $200. for Port-Charges; Cap4 Orne thinking this an
extortionary sum, relused to pay more than $100; but at length the affair
was compromised for $150. On the same night on which this settlement was
effected. Cap4 Orne Sc four of his crew being ashore, John Pori, who was
cabin-boy on board, was ordered to keep a look-out for the Captain & all
hands went below. At about 11 or 12 o’clock, Pori saw a boat approaching
the Ship; he announced this to the first officer, who merely answered “that
it must be the Captain,” yet neither he, nor anyone else, arose to receive
him. When Pori came upon deck again, he found two boats, one on each side
of the vessel. The Ship was immediately boarded by a number of Caffres and
soldiers, during which the Officers Sc Crew came upon deck and were told by
the boarders that Cap" Orne wished them to go ashore, to which the officers
objected as improbable. Pori was then led below and shut up in the Cabin.
While below, he heard no groans or struggles, nor ^hen permitted to go on
deck, did he perceive any clots of blood or other marks by which he could
suppose that the murderous transaction had taken place on board the ship.
He enquired of a Lascar, where were his Officers Sc shipmates, and was told
that they had gone ashore. Not satisfied with this answer, he searched
throughout the vessel, and not finding anything to relieve his fear and
anxiety, he again enquired of the Lascar, who only gave him vague and eva-
sive answers, but told him that no harm should happen to him and in a kind
8c friendly manner endeavoured to console him in his affliction. A vessel be-
longing to Sayd Mohammad Ebn Akeel, was lying at the Island of Cameran
at this time Sc Akeel himself was at Loheia and his crew composed part of
those by whom the ship was boarded. Sc the rest either actually were soldiers
or availed themselves of their dress as a disguise. The Essex was then taken
to the Island of Cameran Sc there sunk or destroyed. Poll was taken care of
by the above mentioned Lascar, who presented him to Sayd Akeel, by whom
he was told, that provided he would take the turban & submit to circumci-
sion, his life should be saved. Several of the people about the person of Akeel
murmured at this decision k endeavoured to convince him of the policy of
putting Poll to death for the general safety. The wife of Akeel however, in-
terceded in his favour Sc to her was he indebted for his life. He was then
carried to Muscat & thence to Dofar, of which last place the Sayd was Sheik
or Governour. On board Akeel’s vessel he saw two guns, & a number of books,
which he is confident formerly belonged to the Essex. He also found a French
Renegado in the service of Akeel who was very kind to him & always behaved
towards him in a generous Sc friendly manner; but who when pressed upon
the subject of the fate of the unfortunate crew of the Essex, uniformly re-
fused to satisfy his enquiries. Pori feels assured however that they were all
murdered, as he has never been able to gain any intelligence respecting them,
since the horrid catastrophe took place; whereas had they been enslaved or
otherwise disposed of, he would have discovered the fact. This was also cor-
roborated by the testimony of an Arab, who declared that he saw Mr. Carter,
the Englishman, whom he well knew, and all the Officers Sc Crew of the
Essex, on the Island of Cameran, with their throats cut from ear to earl How
he became a witness to this hloody spectacle, I could not discover. Poll says
that he does not know what became of the money taken from the Essex; he

258

thinks however that a considerable part was retained by the Xeriff Mahmoud
8c the remainder by the Sayd Akeel. He states that the Sayd Mohammad Ebn
Akeel is a sheik of Dofar 8c is possessed of great wealth. He has several wives,
but no children & has adopted Poll as his son, who with the brother of
Akeel residing at Mocha, will probably inherit his extensive possessions. His
treatment towards Poll has ever been marked with the most parental & affec-
tionate kindness, and though allowing him but little money, has always
supplied him with the necessaries 8c comforts of life. He has given him a slave
in marriage, by whom he has two children, to whom he is most tenderly at-
tached. Concerning the destruction of the Essex his recollection appeared to
be clear & distinct, but the loss in a great degiee of his native language,
through the want of practice, (this being the first time he had conversed with
any Christians since the murder of his countrymen 8c shipmates,) rendered it
difficult lor him to express it in an intelligible manner, and it was only by
dint of the most persevciing enquiries, that the above incomplete account of
that dark transaction was obtained. Concerning his native Country, he has
but few imperfect ideas; time 8c a constant association with Arabs have
effaced from his memory the scenes of his early lile, & probably pains have
been taken by his wily protector to obliterate from his mind all nemembrance
of his youthful impressions. His conversation 8c replies however evinced no
ordinary talents 8c his observations Sc remarks appeared the result of much
natural sense 8c considerable reflection. It may be observed that Captain
Austin Sc myself, offered him every assistance in our power, 8c used many
arguments to induce him to return to his native country 8c assured him of
our protection should he feel so inclined. He answered to this that during
the life-time of Akeel, this was absolutely impossible. That his two children,
whom he loved better than life or liberty himself, were retained as hostages
by his artlul guardian, who had also bound him by a most solemn oath,
again to return to Dotar. He said that he felt himself strongly attached to his
native country 8c vehemently desired to return thither; but that until the
death of Akeel, to which he seemed to look forward as an event that must
occur at no very distant period, he must endeavour to forget these patriotick
feelings amid the pleasures and endearments of domestick life. He states that
about 6 years ago he was brought to Mocha in a vessel of Akeel’s. An Ameri-
can vessel, the name of which I could not discover, was lying in the roads at
the time. One morning, observing the boat of the American rowing towards
them. Poll was ordered below 8c confined in the Cabin. When the boat had
left the ship, he learned that he himself had been the object of their search.
He observed that unfortunately the ship was lying to windward of him, but
had the reverse been the case, no earthly power should have prevented his
throwing himself overboaid 8c endeavouring, by swimming, to have gained
an asylum 8c protection among his countrymen. He was $y2 years old, at the
time of the destruction of the Essex, which he thinks must have been in
February, 1806. His Mohammadan name is Abdallah Mohammad, to which
the name of his patron is sometimes added. The circumspect Akeel, has been
careful to educate him in the principles of the religion of Mahammad Sc
taken the most artful means to banish from his mind all recollections of his
native local attachments 8c affections. Poll complained that the Arabs taunt
Sc reproach him with the imbecility of the American Government, in suffer-
ing this nefarious 8c high-handed offence, against the United States Sc the
religion of Christ to go unpunished.

He states that the city of Dofar is a place of some note, but not so large
as Mocha, that it is walled 8c that the inhabitants are generally engaged in
petty war-fares with the Bedouin Arabs Sc on this account are always armed.
Large vessels cannot approach very near but the Daous & smaller Craft, anchor
within a quarter of a mile of the City. The Dolah of Mocha, being interro-
gated concerning the effect an attack upon Dofar would have upon the Ameri-
can Commerce in the Red Sea, replied that ‘‘Dofar being an independent
province & only submissive to the authority of Akeel, any measures that

259

might be taken relative to the apprehension of the villain, or the destruction
of his City, could have no effect whatever upon any commerce with the other
independent provinces of Arabia.”

chas. cook Sr. Commander of

Brig Lynn of Newbury

Copy of My Instructions from the Dutch East
India Company at Batavia, on My Voyage to
Japan.

[By James Devereux , June , 1799]

[From the Devereux Papers , Essex Institute, Salem, Massa-
chusetts]

When you get to the Lattitude of 26 or 27 North it will be Necessary to

have Everything in Readiness to Comply with the Ceremonies which the

Japanese are accustomed to See performed by the Ships of the Company.

1st You will have all your Colours in order to, dress the Ship on her
entrance into port.

2d There must be a table prepared on the Quarter deck which must be
Covered with a piece of Cloath Sc five Cushions for the Officers to sit
upon when they Come on board.

3d It is indispensably necessary to have a list of all the people on board,
Passengers Sc Officers their Stations Sc age.

4th All the Books of the people & Officers particularly Religious books
must be put in a cask & headed up, the Officers from the Shore will
put their seal on the Cask Sc take it on Shore, & on the departure of
the Ship will bring it on board without having opened it.

5th Before your arrival at Japan you must make the people deliver you
their money Sc keep it untill your departure, this will not be attended
with Inconvenience as at Japan Nothing is bought for Cash but they
may Change their Specie for [Cambang?] Money & then make their
trade, but this must be done by the Captain.

6th When you are in sight of Japan you must hoist a dutch Pendant &
Enseign in their proper places as if you were a dutch Ship.

7th When the Cavelles are on your Starboard hand Sc the Isld. of Japan
on your Larboard you must Salute the Guard on the Cavallas with
9 Guns.

8th After that you pass the Larboard side of the Papenburg Sc Salute with
9 Guns.

9th You then pass the Guards of the Emperor on the Starboard Sc lar-
board Nearly at the Same Time, Sc Salute with 7 or 9 Guns, the first
all Starboard Guns, Sc the Second all Larboard Guns.

10th You then advance into the Road of Nangasackey Sc after anchoring
Salute with 13 Guns.

11th When you enter the Cavelles the Commessaries of the Chief wilt
Come on board Sc you must Salute them with 9 Guns, at the same
time if it is practicable hoist some Colours at the yards as a compli-
ment to them, it is Immaterial what Colours you dress your Snip
with, except Spanish or Portuguise it is however Necessary to Recolect
that the dutch Colours must be allways in their proper place as if the
Ship was of that Nation.

260

12th When the Commessaries Return on Shore you must Salute them with
9 Guns.

13th You must be very Particular in letting the boats which are Round
the Ship know when you are going to tire, as if you were to hurt any
of them the Consequences would be very Important.

14th After you have Anchored & Saluted the Harbour, the officers examine
the list of your people & Compare them with the number on board,
after having received them those who wish it Can go on shore, but
before the Japanese land all the arms & Amunition must be sent on
shore, & it will be proper that Everything of the kind should be
landed as they Search the Ship after she is unloaded. On your de-
parture they will Return it all on board, if there Should by mistake
any powder or fire arms left on board, you must be very Carefull
that not so much as a pistol should be fired untill they Return the
Amunition which was landed. The Agents of the Company will In-
struct you Respecting the other Ceremonies to be observed.

Ill

[Extract from the Diary of George Cleveland, Who Visited
Japan in 1801. Derby Papers , Essex Institute, Salem, Mas-
sachusetts]

Cap4 Samuel Derby, (who with Col. Pickman & Mr John Derby, were
building a fine Ship at Beckets,) asked me to go with him, on his contem-
plated voyage as Clerk, and as Cap4 D. was a very fine man, that I had
always Known, I did not hesitate about the propriety of accepting the offer
a moment. I spent the Summer of 1800 in Salem, with no other employment
than the usual lounging about, of young Sailors, when at home; which is
any thing, but profitable. In the Autumn of that year the Ship was launched,
and fitted with the usual expedition for her voyage, and on the 25th Nov.
1800, we left Salem harbour bound to the East Indies, and probably a finer,
or better fitted, or better manned Ship, never left the port, before. We carried
6 Guns & 20 men. Most of the crew were fine young men in the bloom of
youth, and it is very remarkable how many are now living of this Ships
company, who sailed from Salem, on that day. As it is an uncommon case,
I will enumerate those who are living. S. G. Derby, cap4, Tho8 West 2 Mate,
Lincoln Stetson, carpenter, Sam1 Ray, Joseph Preston, Israel Phippen, An-
thony D. Caulfield before the Mast, & myself. In addition to these, Wm Mes-
servy was shipped in Batavia and returned to Salem in the Ship and I am
uncertain whether a man by the name of Thatcher who left Salem with us is
still living or not. Last year a man by the name of Patrick Dwyer who was
one of crew, died,— So that at the end of 37 years, nearly one half of the
original crew, were living. We soon found on leaving port, what a fast sailing
Ship the Margaret was, and this, was more particularly the case, when we fell
in with a vessel. I recollect when we were out 11 days, we fell in with the
Bark Two Brothers, Cap4 John Holman, who had left Salem Some days be-
fore us, bound to Leghorn. We made him ahead in the afternoon steering
the same course we were, and before night we were up along side and spoke
him. Cap4 Holman appeared to be very much surprised & said he thought
we were a Sloop of War. The next day we fell in with a fleet of merchantmen
convoyed by a Frigate,— As we had to cross the track of these vessels, the
Frigate, which was under very short sail Kept all snug until she had got into
our wake, when she Set all sail in chase, but we distanced her so much, that
in a very short time she gave it up, took in her sails, and rejoined the fleet.
On the 19th Dec. we made the Island of St Anthony (one of the Cape de
Verd Islands) and had the winds so light and variable, afterwards that we
did not cross the Equator until the 4th Jan. making a passage of 40 days

261

from Salem. After crossing the line we had a good breeze from the S. E. and
soon ran into variable Winds. The Ship would frequently go 8, 9, 10 & even
11 Knots by the Wind in crossing the trades;— the Sails were all new, and
very large, & the night dews, made them very thick,— so that they were equal
almost, to a double suit. Nothing took place, that was remarkable. Afterwards
in our passage and on the 4th Feb. 1801 we anchored in Table bay (C. of G.
Hope). We saluted the Admirals Ship, which was returned. It was the custom
of that day to stop at the Cape, outwd. & homewd. bound, to fill water, and
procure refreshments, but as many accidents happened by so doing, the
practice has gone out of use, and it is rare now for a vessel to stop. It any
thing is wanted, on the homeward voyage, Ships stop at St Helena. I found
at the Cape, many of my old friends, alive & well; — especially Mr. Onkroyds
family, who had treated us so civilly, when there in the Hannah. They com-
plained, of the deceptive and bad conduct of the Cap* of that vessel, which
there is no doubt they had ample cause for, especially in regard to his ad-
dresses to a young Lady of the family, whom he promised to come back &
marry. I think on the whole she was fortunate in keeping clear of that man,
—as she was afterwards respectably married I was told to a, Dutch gentleman.
We found the most hospitable treatment at Mr. Onkroyds house. On the
10th of Feb. we left the Cape bound to Sumatra and found it difficult to get
to the Eastw. as winds and cui rents were against us; we continued however
to make the best of way & after rather a tedious passage we anchored ,in
Bencoolen roads on the 10th of Apiil 1801 after being 136 days from Salem
including our stoppage at the Cape. We found at Bencoolen the Ships Beli-
sarius. Cap* Skerry of Salem Sc the Mercury, Cap* Col^sworthy of Boston. As
nothing could be done at Bencoolen and the Supercargo of the Mercury gave
such good accounts of the prospect in Batavia, for such a Ship as ours, he
having just arrived from that place; that Cap* Derby thought it his duty to
proceed immediately there. We accordingly left Bencoolen on the 15th of
April and arrived at Batavia on the 25th of the same month. We found at
this place the Ships Franklin of Salem Sc Bacchus of Baltimore. Cap* Derby
soon made a bargain with the agents of the E. India company, to take the
annual freight, to and from Japan, and as it was the custom from time im-
memorial that the Japan Ship should sail on a certain day & as that day was
some time ahead; it was necessary to find some employment for the vessel
previously as it was then very dangerous to the healths ot Crews to be lying
any time, in Batavia roads. The company accordingly offered Cap* Derby a
freight of Coffee from a port a short distance to the Eastward called Inilra-
mao, which he readily accepted. This wore away 12 or 14 days of the time,
& added to the profits of the voyage about 2000 Dolls. I remained at Ba-
tavia during the absence of the Ship, & as I was' very particular in my mode
of living I got along very well. I used to ride out about sunset to visit some
of the Americans in the Hospital, of whom at that time, there were many.
Batavia in those days was much more fatal to foreigners than it is at present.
After the English took it, they filled up the Canals,— tore down the City
walls, and made many other improvements, so that at this time, I am told,
it is quite a different place. It required considerable strength of nerve, to
remain any time there, at this period,— as the well, as they were called, looked
much more like the subjects of a Hospital, than to be about the Streets. I
lived at the great Hotel opposite the great Church; both of which buildings,
have been taken down since, in making improvements in the City. The Table
was sumptuously supplied, and as for fruit, it was in the greatest variety, and
abundance. The business of the Company was carried on with much foolish
parade, and unnecessary expence, and it was really ridiculous in the Direc-
tors of a Company of Merchants, to be assuming the port and bearing of
sovereigns, as they did;— when the plain unostentatious manners, and habits,
of their native land, would have been much more, in Character. The ware-
houses for Storing Sugar, Coffee Sc Pepper, were on a grand scale; and so
large were the accumulations of produce, that the Cargo of 300 Tons of

262

Coffee, which the Ship brought from Indramao, appeared to increase the
bulk of a pile, that was previously stored there, but very little.

Finding that our funds would be so much increased if we returned safe
from Japan, that the Ship would not be able to take above half the amount
onboard in Coffee; Cap* D. was at a loss at first to know what to do;— he
however finally concluded to send Mr James Stuart, the Chief Mate, to the
Isle of France, and there buy a prize vessel, with which he was to return to
Batavia in season to meet us when we should get back from Japan. Stuart
accordingly sailed as a passenger, for the Isle of France (I think before we
left,) taking with him A. D. Caulfield who was one of the Margaret's crew.
After discharging the Cargo from Indramao we began to take onboard the
Cargo for Japan. This consisted of a great variety of articles, such as the
Dutch had been in the habit of shipping for nearly* two Centuries. It was
composed of Sugar, Spices, Japan 8c Sandal woods, Rattans, Glass 8c Glass
ware, Cloths, medicines 8c various other articles; and as every thing was to
be done according to a prescribed rule, and we were not to sail until a cer-
tain day, in June, we had time enough, to do all things right, as regards
receiving, and stowing the Cargo. Having every thing onboard and being all
ready, we weighed Anchor at 8 a. m. on the 20th June 1801, with a Dutch
Pilot onboard, whom we discharged, two hours afterward. We had as a Pas-
senger, a young Dutchman, who was going out as a Clerk to the establish-
ment, in Japan. He was rather an uninteresting man, and did not add much
to the pleasure of our Cabin party. On the 3d day out, we saw 20 Malay
proas, lying with their Sails down,— as we approached them, they made sail,
and stood to the westward,— we supposed them, a fleet of Pirate proas. On the
next day we passed through the Straits of Gasper. On the 7th of July saw the
rocks and breakers on the Pratas Shoal, leaving from it N.w. to n. The next
day, we made the coast of China, 8c passed several Chinese fishing boats. On
the gth we were in the Straits of Formosa, and the day following made the
Island of that name, the weather thick and rainy.

On the morning of July 16 made the Islands of Cosique and St Clara,
which are near the harbour of Nangasacca (our destined port). On the 18th
two fishing boats came along side who supplied us with fish. On Sunday
July 10 by civil account, at noon, we were so near, that we hoisted 20 differ-
ent colors; and in the afternoon, entered the haibour of Nangasacca. We had
much ceremony to go through, in entering this port, which is considered
indispensible; among other things, to fire several salutes. As I was lying in
my cot, on our arrival, very sick, with a nervous fever. Cap* D. endeavoured
to get clear of this part of the business,— but it could not be dispensed with,
and there was actually fired over my head, while lying in that situation, 49
Guns 6tt [sic] pounds!. As any little noise had previously disturbed me very
much, this was more than I could bear, and retain my senses,— so that finally I
lost the consciousness of what was passing about me. The day after our arrival
I landed on the Island of Decima. (A little Island connected with the City of
Nangasacca, by a Bridge; it is walled all round, and here the Dutch residents,
are obliged to pass their lives.) As there was no house prepared for us, I went
to the Dutch Doctors, Myneer Letzke, who kept House, and had a Japanese
woman for his wife, by whom he had several children. This to be sure was
but a poor resort, for a person, wrho was as sick as I was,— but the necessity
of the case, and having a Physician at hand, made it more convenient, than
to have remained onboard the Ship. I continued with the Docr several days;
my bed being only a common matrass on the Floor; — Until our own estab-
lishment was prepared, when I removed to that, and had the luxery of a Cot
swing, and a musquito curtain, which at that time, was better than all the
Docr# prescriptions. After getting into our new habitation I began gradually
to improve, out it was a long time before I was well enough to attend to
business: during my sickness the Doc. had been in the habit of giving me
large doses of laudnum,— and It was long after I had got better,— before I
could do without it,— indeed, I finally came to the conclusion that I would

263

not use it any longer, and in consequence, laid awake all night, for several
successive nights, until wearied nature at last submitted. Cap4 D. dined every
day at the Table of the Dutch establishment, 8c I remained while on shore,
(which was the principal part of the time, we were in Japan,) to get my
dinner alone. Francis Hector the Steward of the Ship, was house keeper.
Cook, and Servant, and a very good fellow, he was. Provisions were very dear,
as every thing came through the hands of a Compredoor 8c he no doubt
put upon them a large profit. My dinner after my recovery was frequently
mackerel & sweet potatoes, and even at this day (Feb. 7. 1840) I can remember
with what a relish I eat this food; they were both good of the Kind, and in
addition, the bread was as fine, as any country could produce. Sometimes we
would have pork, or a Fowl, but these articles came very high.

Cap4 Derby, Mr West 8c myself, carried several articles of merchandize,
on our own accounts; this has always been allowed to the Dutch Capt",— but
then, the sale of these articles, must be made by the Japanese Government.
All the articles were landed on the Island,— opened and displayed in a ware-
house 8c on certain days, the Merchants were allowed to [come] on the Island
to examine them. Nothing could exceed the minuteness with which they
examined every thing. Among other articles we had a quantity of Tumblers
8c wine Glasses; these they measured with the greatest care —run their fingers
over every part to determine what inequalities there were on the Surface,
and then held each piece up to the light to see the colour. They also made
drawings of the different description of pieces. After this investigation was
made 8c it took no little time; they then marked on their memorandums the
number of the lot and probably the result of their investigations. Every thing
we had to sell, went through a similar ordeal,— so' that to us, who were
lookers on, and owners of the property, nothing could be more tedious. It
was perfectly natural however, that people who did so little, should proceed
with a caution, that men who were used to much business, could not spare
from other avocations, and that they, should devote much time to small
objects, when we should consider it, too valuable. After the goods had been
sufficiently examined, a day was appointed for a sale in the City of Nanga-
sacca, and was conducted with the greatest fairness. Cap4 D. 8c myself went
into the City attended by the requisite number of officers 8c proceeded to
what the Dutch call the Gelt Chamber, where we found one or more upper
Banyoses seated in their usual state, and a general attendance of the Mer-
chants. We were placed where we could see all that was going on, and receive
such explanations, as were requisite, to a thoiough understanding of the
whole business. The goods being all disposed of, we were escorted back to
the Island with much formality, not however, until a day had been appointed
by the Great man, for the delivery of the goods. Delivering these adventures,
was a great affair, and it was a number of days, before the whole was taken
away. No person in this country (who has not traded with people who have
so little intercourse with the world,) can have an idea of the trouble we had
in delivering this little Invoice, which would not have been an hours work
in Salem. We finally after a great trial of our patience, finished delivering
goods, and if I recollect right, articles that did not come up to the pattern,
were taken at diminished prices.

On the 20th Sep. 1801. we went into the City of Nangasacca, our
party consisted of Cap4 Derby, Mr Doeff, Dr Letzke, Mr Egis, Mr Bouquet,
Mr Fisher, the Dutch Sailor & myself, besides three under Banyoses 8c Six
Tullocks. The first place we went to in the City was to Facquias, an eminent
Stuff Merchant, here we were received with great politeness, and entertained
in such a manner as we little expected. We had set before us, for a repast.
Pork, Fowl, Meso, Eggs, boiled fish, Sweet meats. Cake, various Kinds of
fruit, & Sacky 8c Tea. The lady of the House was introduced, who drank tea
with each of us, as is the custom of Japan. She appeared to be a modest
Woman, which cannot be said of many of her countrywomen. The place we
next visited was a Temple, to this we ascended from the street, by at least

264

Two hundred stone steps; we saw nothing very remarkable in this building,
excepting its size, which was very large; though in fact we were only admited
into an outer apartment, as there appeared to be religious ceremonies going
on within. Adjoining this building was the burying ground. In this ground
was the Tomb of one of their Governors, which was made of stone, and very
beautifully wrought; and on the front stone, there was a long inscription,
before which, the Banyoses Sc Tullocks, falling down on their knees, bowed
their heads to the earth. The Tomb was enclosed with a wall of stone, and
without the wall, were several images of stone, standing on pedestals. There
were several stone lamps, but were not lighted. This burying ground was
very extensive, it was situated on the side of a hill,— as most of their burying
grounds are; each grave had a stone, with an inscription. The Japanese bury
the body in the same position as they sit,— with their legs bent under them;
they are put into a Bally, which is not unlike a barrel, and in this manner
committed to the earth, which is always done in the night. We next visited
another Temple, which was likewise situated on the side of a hill, Sc reached
by Stone steps, Sc was less elevated than the other. The outside of the build-
ing was ordinary, as most of the buildings are,— but the inside, presented a
great degree of neatness. It consisted of a great many apartments, in some
of which were images, and in one, over a Kind of alter, was a Lamp which
was kept continually burning. In another apartment there were several long
pieces of boards or escutcheons, painted black with an inscription, to the
memory of some of their deceased Emperors or Governors, before each of
these was a cup of Tea, which they informed us, was renewed every day.
There were a number of apartments, which probably the Priests occupied,
as there were many of them, passing in & out. These are dressed like the
other Japanese, excepting that their caloys, or outside garments, were all
black, & their heads shaved all over.

From this Temple, we went to the Glass House, which was on a small
scale, this was the first, Sc the last Glass House, I have ever been in, (altho’
I am 59 years old.) I was surprised to find they had brought the art to such
perfection, but they are yet obliged to import fine glass, to supply their
wants. From the Glass House, we went to a Lac ware merchants, we were
entertained, with much hospitality. From thence we were conducted to a
Tea House, or Hotel, where we dined. After dinner, we were entertained
with various feats of dancing, tumbling Sec. their dancing is much like the
Chinese fashion, and other eastern nations, and consists more in distortions
of the body, than in anything, that could be called grace. The music con-
sisted of an instrument not unlike a Guitar, accompanied by the voice of
the person who played the instrument, this hapened to be an old man, whose
distortions of countenence, made it apparent, that it was no small effort, to
make music. There was also a Drum, Sc likewise an instrument, shaped very
much like an half hour glass. After the dancing came a kind of comedy.
This resembled very much their dancing, excepting that the actors spoke, —
almost all those, were women, Sc were said to be people of very loose habits.
The last performance was the Tumbling, which was done, with great agility.
Towards dark we returned to the Island Sc so great was the crowd, in the
streets, to see us pass, that it was with difficulty we could get along. The
number of children we saw, both going Sc coming, was truly astonishing.

The City of Nangasacca, is surrounded with very high hills, excepting
the part, connected with the harbour;— it is not of great extent, but very
populous, containing it is said, between, fifty Sc sixty thousand inhabitants.
It is not a manufacturing City, like Jeddo, or Neaco, nor does the lands in
the neighbourhood, appear well adapted to agriculture,— but probably so
many people are brought together here from having so fine a harbour, and
its vicinity to China, with whom the Japanese have a considerable inter-
course. The streets of the City are all narrow, and are inconvenient to walk
in, as they are covered with loose stones, about as large as paving stones. At
short distances, you have to go up, or down, flights of stone steps, which

265

extend across the street, and is caused, by the inequality of the ground.
They have no kind of carriages, as it would be impossible to use them, in
such streets. At the end of every street, is a gate, which is locked at night,—
and if a citizen were to pass the night, in any other than his own street, his
name would be taken by the person who keeps the gate; and most probably
handed, to the Police Officer. The houses are generally built of wood, and
seldom exceed two stories, on account of the earthquakes, which are very
frequent. The external appearance of almost all their Houses, are mean but
within, they are very clean, & neat, at least, those that I saw. The floors are
all covered with mats, Sc it is considered a piece of ill breeding, to tread on
them, without first taking off the shoes. The Japanese ciress much alike; the
dress of the men consists first of a caloy, or loose gown, which comes down
as low as the ancles, over this, is worn a kind of petticoat, which comes as
low as the other,— these garments are made of Silk, or cotton; the Petticoat
does not go higher than the hips;— over the shoulders, they wear a shawl,
which is generally made of black crape, and round the waist, they have a
band of either Silk or Cotton; thro’ this band, the Officers of Government
put their swords, and they are the only persons, who are allowed to carry
these instruments. The middle part of the head, is all shaved, the remaining
hair, which is left, on each side, Sc behind, is then combed together, and made
very stiff, with gum, mixed with Oil, Sc then turned up on the top of the
head, in a little club, about as large as a man’s thumb. This is the universal
fashion of dressing the head, both with rich Sc poor, excepting the Priests,
whose heads are entirely shaved. The dress of all classes are in the same
fashion, the poor do not wear the silk Petticoat, or drape shawl, and indeed
the Cooleys & other labourers, at the time, we were there, threw all their
clothes off, excepting a cloth around the middle, when at work. The dress of
the women is a Caloy, with large sleeves, very much the same as the mens;—
they also wear a band round the waist, made either of Cotton, Silk, or Plush.
The females suffer the hair to grow long, which is made stiff with gum Sc oil,
and then is turned up, on top of the head, where it is secured, with various
turtle shell ornaments. These ornaments, are the dearest part of a Ladys
dress, frequently amounting, to 300 Tale. The shoes Sc stockings of men Sc
women are alike, the former are made of straw Sc protect only the bottom of
the foot,— the latter, are generally made of thick blue, or white Cotton, &
come up, about as high, as the calf of the leg. The stockings are not worn,
unless the weather is cold.

The Japanese, to each other, are very polite,— as they generally sit on
mats, their usual salutation to each other, is by bowing the head to the
earth, and in the street, they stop to bow to their acquaintances; and these
civilities are not confined to any particular class in society,— but the poor, as
well as the rich, have the same kind manners. As long as we were in Japan
I do not recollect of seeing one person, that appeared to be angry with
another, but the most perfect harmony prevailed among them. They have
great vices as well as great virtues; such as are very common both with male
Sc female, in Eastern nations. Of the religious opinions of Japanese, I know
but little, and the Hollanders who reside here, appear to be no better in-
formed. I am told, they believe in the existence, of one supreme being,— in a
future state, and in rewards 8c punishments;— they have numerous Idols, with
which their Temples abound, these they consider as mediators, with the
supreme being. I have seen them kneel before these Idols, with much ap-

Earent humility Sc piety. They likewise worship fire, many of them, having a
anjp continually burning in their Houses, also, the new & full moon. I have
seen some of them with a string of beads on their arms, in the manner of
Catholics. They have various fasts and luckey Sc unluckey days. It is said,
that the 5th of their new year, is the day appointed for dishonoring the
cross, but of course, we saw nothing of it. They have observed one fast since
we were here, which was in remembrance of the dead; the ceremonies were
principally in the night; the first of which was devoted to feasting, at Wnich

266

they fancy their friends are present, the 2d and 3d nights, the graves, which
are lighted with paper Lamps, Sc situated as they are, on the side of a hill,
make a most brilliant appearance. On the 4th night at 3 o’clock the Lamps
are all brought down to the water, & put into small straw barks, with paper
sails, made for the occasion, & after putting in rice, fruit &c, they are set
afloat. This exhibition was very fine. The Japanese on the death of their
parents abstain from flesh & fish, forty nine days, & on the Anniversary they
keep the same fast, but do not do it, for any other relatives.

2 67

REFERENCE NOTES

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN MUSIC

1 Strabo, The Geography , transl, by H. L. Jones (1928), V, 109.

•Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (New York,
x943)» PP- 198-271.

8 Curt Sachs, “The Road to Major,” The Musical Quarterly , XXIX
(1943), 381-404.

4 Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (New York,
1943), Section 7.

6 Curt Sachs, “Towards a Prehistory of Occidental Music,” The Musical
Quarterly , XXIV (1938), 147-52.

THE ORIENT AND WESTERN ART

1 Edward F. Strange, Japanese Illustrations (London, 1896).

•Raymond Koechlin, Souvenirs d’un Vieil Amateur d’Art de VExtrfone
Orient (Chalon-sur-Saone: Imprimerie Franjais a Orientale, Bertrand,
1930).

OUR AGRICULTURAL DEBT TO ASIA

1 Indian Journal of Medical Research , XXIV, 1083-92.

*W. H. Sebrell, in E. A. Evans, Jr., The Biological Action of the Vita-
mins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), pp. 74-83.

8H. J. Webber and E. B. Boykin, “The Advantage of Planting Heavy
Cotton Seed,” Farmers Bull. 285, (1907).

*Yii ti mien hua t‘u, by Fang Kuan-cheng, Viceroy of Chili (1765 a.d.),
a large folio of 12 plates in de luxe binding, regarding cotton culture, har-
vest, spinning, and weaving, with a rhythmic prose introduction by the Em-
peror K‘ang Hsi and descriptive and allegorical poems, one by the Emperor
Ch‘ien Lung, and brief instructions on cotton culture and use by the Vice-
roy Fang Kuan-cheng opposite the plate to which they refer. The plates
are in white line on black ground, like rubbings. Translated by Kiang
Kang-hu and Walter T. Swingle in Ms., 1917.

* H. W. Barre and W. B. Aull, “Hot Water Treatment for Cotton An-
thracnose,” Science , n.s., 40:109-10, 1914.

6 Since 1931 more than a dozen papers concerning lei kung feng were
published in Chinese by Chinese entomologists and chemists. Mr. Hagerty
translated all of them under my direction, and thanks to the full informa-
tion these papers contained, the plant was identified as Tripterygium Wil -
fordii, a member of the family Celastraceae. This family includes the
American Celastrus scandens, which resembles the lei kung teng in vegeta-
tive characters. The Chinese species has very different winged fruits, not
showing a scarlet aril as do those of our American vines.

’Walter T. Swingle, H. L. Haller, E. H. Siegler, and M. C. Swingle,

268

“A Chinese Insecticidal Plant Tripterygium Wilfordii , Introduced into the
United States,” Science , 93:15-17, January 17, 1941.

8 Bureau of Plant Industry, Bull. 86.

9 Carl R. Raswan, The Black Tents of Arabia: My Life Among the
Bedouins (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1935), Appendix 1, “The Arab and
His Horse,” pp. 213-39, with diagrams showing 3 principal breeds and 20
leading strains.

10 Victor Arthur Rice, Breeding and Improvement of Farm Animals (3rd
ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1942), p. 52.

11 Blunt, Lady Anne, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates , ed. with some
account of the Arabs and their horses by W. S. B[lunt] (2 vols., 1879).

Blunt, Lady Anne, A Pilgrimage to Nejd (2 vols., 1881).

THE ORIENT AND CONTEMPORARY POETRY

1F. S. Flint, “Eau-Forte,” in Some Imagist Poets (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1915).

aT. S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi,” in Collected Poems (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company).

8 Herbert A. Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (New York: D.
Appleton-Century Company, 1901).

4 Ezra Pound, Personae— Collected Poems (New York: Liveright Pub-
lishing Corporation).

“Arthur Waley, /70 Chinese Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).

LIVING RELIGIONS AND A WORLD FAITH

1Wincenti Lutoslawski, Polish philosopher celebrated by William James
in his essay on “The Energies of Men.”

a Rabbi Newman of New York is my authority for the statement that
the Jewish population of the world between 1880 and 1940 had approxi-
mately doubled.

UNDERSTANDING AND REUNION: AN ORIENTAL
PERSPECTIVE

1Cf. my “Ornament” in the Art Bulletin , XXI (1939).

aGopala Krishnayya, quoted in G. V. Krishna Rao, The Chirala-Perala
Tragedy (Madras, 1922), p. 145.

“Marco Pallis, Peaks and Lamas (1939), p. 380. In this highly civilized,
and not merely civilian volume, as also in Aldous Huxley’s Ways and
Means , there can be studied the technique of bringing together again the
accidentally divided cultures; the proper task, as was pointed out by Rene
Guenon, in East and West , of an intellectual aristocracy.

4 St. Augustine, Confessions , IX, 10.

“Xenophon, Oeconomicus , XVII, 3.

8J. Bunot, “Easter Art and the Occident,” Aryan Path , Feb. 1932.

7B. de Zoete and W. Spies, Dance and Drama in Bali (1939).

8M. H. Aung, Burmese Drama (1937). Cf. D. C. Sen History of Bengali
Language and Literature (1911), pp. 724 ff.

9 Cambridge History of English Literature , VI, 328.

10Ren6 Guenon, East and West (London, 1941), p. 146. This is the first

269

of a series of translations of Rene Guenon’s works, all of which have an im-
portant bearing on the question of Oriental “influence.”

11 Leroy Waterman in Joum. Am. Oriental Soc. 58410-412.

“Cf. Aldous Huxley, Ways and Means , p. 205, “A Greek tragedy was
much more than a play . . . Modem dramas . . . are, essentially, secular
... an almost daily stimulant. Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic
art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation.”

“A. M, Hocart, Les castes (Paris, 1939), p. 27.

14 R. S. and H. Lynd, Middletown , p. 80.

“ See A. K. Coomaraswamy, “Play and Seriousness,” Journal of Philoso-
phy, XXXIX (1942), 450-52.

19 Cf. Miguel Asin, Islam and the Divine Comedy (London, 1926) .

17 RumI, Mathnawi, Book II, Introduction. Cf. Rene Guenon, VEsoterisme
de Dante (Paris, 1925).

“See Jean Seznec, “Flaubert and India,” Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes , IV (1942), 142-50. Creuzet’s illustrations of Indian
deities, on which Flaubert relied, are quite creditable: this is especially true
for the figure of BhavanI as Jtorvia fjggwv and nutrix omnium , reproduced
by Seznec.

“Plato, Protagoras, 312 E.

INDEX

Adams, Henry, 43-5, 48
Adams, William, 14
Addison, Joseph, 32
A.E., see Russell, George
Agncw, R. Gordon, 138
Agricultural Marketing Administration,
90

Agriculture, 84-114; apples, 107; Arabs,
108-13; cantaloupe, 105-6, 1 13 ; car-
rots, 105; cattle, 104-5; China, 85-
103; dates, 108-11; figs, 108; horses,
1 1 1-3; India, 104-6; mangoes, 104;
millet, 107; Persia, 103-4; Siberia,
106-7; truck crops, 106; wheat, 106-7
Aiken, Conrad, 162
Albumazar, 32-3
Aldington, Richard, 154, 155
Alexander III, Pope, 8
America, 32-3, 39, 42-50, 69, 78, 80,
85-94, 97-9, 104-14; attitude to Asia,
115-44; China and, 130, 132-44; East
Indies and, 129-30; India and, 128-9;
Japan and, 130-2; missionaries from,
120-44; Near East and, 120-7; re-
ligions in, 193-4

American Antiquarian Society, 255
American Assoc, for China Famine and
Flood Relief, 1 44

American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, 120, 135

American Council of Learned Societies,
xii, 140, 1 41 -3

American Friends of: the Arabs, 126-7;
Greece, 127; the Near East, 127; Tur-
key, 127

American Oriental Society, 142

Amerindians, 13, 18

“Anashuya and Vijaya,” 184

Andreae, Johann Valentin, 13

Anthropology, 38

Ants, growing, 95-6

Arabic, American, 121

Arab National League, 126

Arabs, 116-7, 126-7; religion of, 196;

see also Islam
Arezzo, Guido d*, 60, 61
Archaeology, 125-6
Architecture, 77-9
Arnold Arboretum, 85
Arnold, Edwin, 42, 43
Arnold, Matthew, 42-3
Associated Boards for Christian Colleges
in China, 143
Atkinson, Geoffrey, 15
Auden, W. H., 170, 191
Augustus the Strong, 71
Aurelius, Marcus, 6
Avril, Jean, 77
Ayscough, Florence, 165

27O

Babbitt, Irving, 49-50, 177, 190
Babur, 104

Bacon, Francis, 13, 14

Ball, Sir Alexander John, 249

Ballet, oriental influence on, 35, 217-25

Barensfeld, Thomas E., 191

Barker, George, 186

Baronius, Cardinal, 9

Bashford, Bishop James W., 136

Bates, Ely, 26

Beardsley, Aubrey, 74

Beatty, Sir Chester, 8 in.

Bcckford, William, 31
Beethoven, Ludwig von, 67
Belubel, 33

Bergson, Henri, 177, 191
B^sant, Annie, 178, 186
Bethge, Hans, 157
Bhagavadgita, 49, 178, 191
Bigelow, William Sturgis, 43, 44
Bing, S., 74, 75
Blake, Harrison, 48
Blake, William, 150, 179
Blastophaga, 108

Blavatsky, Mme. H. P., 43, 176-9, 181,
182, 184, 186-9
Bliss, Daniel, 120
Blount, Charles, 19
“Blue Symphony,” 157, 158
Blunt, Lady Anne Noel, 112
Blunt, Wilfred Scawcn, 112, 147
Bodhisattva, 9
Boemus, Joannes, 12
Bolingbroke, Henry, 51
Boswell, James, 20
Bottger, Johann F., 71
Bourgault-Ducoudray, Louis-Albert, 68
Boyle, Sir Robert, 10

Bracquemont, , 73

Brahma, Ernest, 34
Breasted, James Henry, 125
Breese, D., 91
Brewster, Earl, 187
Bridgeman, Elijah C., 135
Britain (England), 1-27, 31-2, 36, 39,
81; and China, 135; and India, 127-9
British Indian Societies, 129
Bronzes, Chinese, 72, 75
Brooks, Van Wyck, 46
Browning, Robert, 42, 146, 150
Bryan, William Jennings, 30-1
Buck, Pearl S., xii, 34, 140
Buchan, John, 1

Buddha (-ism), 5, 7-9, 42, 43, 49, 53,
79, 128, 169, 176, 182, 189, 190, 198-
200, 204-8, 21 1-4
Budgell, Eustace, 24
Buhot, Jean, 219
Bunsho, 77
Burns, C. Delisle, 26

Bureau of Chemistry and Agricultural
Engineering, 91

Bureau of Plant Industry, 88, 98, 102,
106-7, 1 1 3
Burton, Richard, 34
Byron, George Gordon, 39-41, 162
Byzandum, 64

Caldwell, Harry R., 137
Calhoun, Simeon, 120
Camondo, Isaac de, 74, 75
Campanella, Tomasso, 13
Campbell, Joseph, 146
Canonization, 8-9
Carleton, Mark A., 107
Carlyle, Thomas, 199
Carmarthen, Lord, 247
Cassat, Mary, 76

Catholic Church, 7-8, 58-62, 134
Caxton, William, 4, 5, 9
Ceramics, 71-2, 75
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, 148
Champflcury (Jules Fleury-Husson), 74
Chatterjee, Mohini, 178
Chattcrton, Thomas, 36
Chaucer, Geoffrey, .6
Cheese, soy bean, 92
Chesterton, G. K., 176
Chew, Samuel C., 16
China, 16-8, 21-8, 36, 38, 43, 47, 52, 57,
67, 68, 70-2, 75, 106, 113, 114, 118,
130-4, 140-3, 232; Trade, 70-2, 252-4
Christianity, 193-5, 198-200, 204-8, 214
Chubb, Thomas, 20

Churchill, , 11

Ch‘u Yuan, 168

Clark, T. Blake, 35

Cleveland, George, 26-7

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 167, 183

Colleges, missionary: China, 135-9, 141-2;

Near East, 120-2
Collins, William, 36
Colum, Padraic, 162
Conant, Martha P., 31, 32
Confucius (-ianism), 18-9, 21-7, 29, 45,
57, 1 18, 136, 149, 173, 180, 200, 203,
206-7

Cook, Capt., 82

Coomaraswamy, Dr. Ananda K., xi, 81,
187

Cooper, Anthony (Shaftesbury), 15, 16,
26

Cornelius, Peter, 67
Cortissoz, Royal, 44, 45
Coverley, Sir Roger de, 31
Cox, Edward G., 12
Cramner-Byng, 149
Crapsey, Adelaide, 161
Cros, Guy Charles, 152

Damasus, Pope, 62

271

Dance, oriental, 217-25
Dante Alighieri, 169, 170, 183, 185, 218,
229

Darwin(ism), Charles, 38, 42, 43, 177,
179, 186

Davids, T. W. Rhys, 8
Davies, Marion, 191
Davies, W. H., 150
Debussy, Claude, 68
Decker, Paul, 17
Degas, Hilaire, 73, 76
Deism (-ists), 19-21, 24-7, 47
Derby, Capt. Samuel, 261-7
Derby Papers, 261
Devereux, James, 260
Devereux Papers, 260-1
Devine, J. P., 91
Dewey, John, 21 1
Diaz de la Pena, 73
Dickinson, G. Lowes, 30

Divine, , 91

Doolittle, Hilda, 147
Doolittle, Justus, 136
Donatus, 46

Doni, Antonio Francesco, 6
Donne, John, 170
Dorsett, P. H., 86
Drama, oriental, 35, 219-28
Du Halde, , S. J., 25, 35

East and West Assoc., xii, 143
East India Co., 70-1, 127-8, 236-51,
260-1

East Indies, 117-8, 129-30
Eckhart, Meister, 229-30
Eden, Richard, 12
Eddy, William A., 15
Edgar, James, 137
Edman, Irwin, 191
Eglinton, John, 178

Ehrlich, , 222

Eliot, T. S., 163-4, i7<>> 1 75'6, 185
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 39, 46-8, 177
Encyclopedias, 12
Endicott, Governor, 254
Ephedrin, 101-2

Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art, 44,
153

Epstein, Jacob, 157
Essex Institute, 260, 261

Fairchild, David, 85, 88, 104

Fairchild, Hoxie N., 37

Famine Herbals, 100

Fan, Mei Lan, 222

Fann-Makers, case of, 240-1

Fantin-Latour, 73

Farmer, Henry George, 65

Farr, Florence, 146

Fatik, Abu’l Wafa Mubeschir ben, 4

Fenollosa, Ernest, 43-6, 152-9, 161, 165,
180

Fenollosa, Mary, 156

Fielding, Henry, 31

Firdausi (Abul Kasim Mansur), 42

Firkins, O. W., 162

Fisk, Pliny, 120

Fitzgerald, Edward, 42, 43, 147
Flecker, James Elroy, 147, 148, 150
Fletcher, John Gould, 145-74
Flint, F. S., 146-8, 154-5, 158
Flower arrangement, Japanese, 79-80
Foerster, Norman, 50
Ford, Henry, 89
Fortuny y Carbo, 73

France, 21-3, 28-9, 32, 39, 68, 73-5,
87-8, 179-80; poetry of, 146-7, 193
Franklin, Benjamin, 32-3, 88
Freer, Charles, 74
Freud, Sigmund, 53
Fuller, Loie, 77
Fu Manchu, 118

Galimard, Nicolas, 74
Galland, Antpine, 31
Gandhi, Mahatma, 189, 191, 197-8, 211
Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri, 157
Gauguin, Paul, 76
Gautier, Judith, 39, 149, 151
Gee, N. Gist, 90
Gcorgeson, C. C., 88
Georgians, 150
Germany, 23, 39, 193
Gerry Papers, 254-5
“Ghosts of an Old House,” 160, 161
Gibson, Edmund (Bishop of London),
24-5

Gilbert, William S., 119
Giles, Herbert A., 149, 165
Gluck, Christoph Wilibald von, 67
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 39, 147, 170,
171

Goldsmith, Oliver, 29, 32
Goncourt collection, 74
Gonse, Louis, 74, 75
Gove, Philip Babcock, 15
Grattan, C. Hartley, 50
Gregorian chant, 58-62, 221
Gregory I, Pope, 58
Groff, George Weidman, 95, 96
Guaita, Stanislas de, 179, 181
Guenon, Ren6, 226
Gueulette, Thomas Simon, 32-4
Guggenheim Foundation, xii

Guimet, , 74

Gupta, Pandit Das, 208

Hagerty, Michael J., 86, 98, 99
Hakluyt, Richard, 12
Hale, Matthew, 28
Hall, Charles M., 142

272

Hamlin, Cyrus, 120
Hansen, N. E., 107
Hardy, Thomas, 42
Harrington, James, 13
Harrison, Dr. Paul, 124
Harvard-Yenching Institute, 142
Hastings, Warren, 127
Havcll, E. B., 81
Haviland, Charles Edward, 74
Hay, John, 44
Hayashi, 74, 75
Haydn, Joseph, 67
H. D., 154-5
Heard, Gerald, 189-92
Hearn, Lafcadio, 43, 119, 148-9
Heine, Heinrich, 39
Hervy-Saint-Denys, d’, 149, 151
Higginbottam, Sam, 128
Hinduism, 176, 193-4, 1 97-8; dance and
drama, 217-25; literature on, 223-4
Hiroshige, 75
Hitler, Adolph, 176
Hodgson, Ralph, 150
Hokusai, 76
Hooker, Bishop, 19
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 176
Horse, Arabian, 111-3
Hospitals, Near East, 124-5
Houdard, Charles, 76

Housed, , 73

Huddleston, Sisley, x

Hudson, G. F., 22

Hughes, Glenn, 145

Hugo, Victor, 146, 152, 155

Hulme, T. E., 146, 147, 155, 156, 176

Hummel, Dr. Arthur, 97

Hunt, Leigh, 41

Huxley, Aldous, 175, 189-92

Huxley, Thomas, 177, 179, 186

Huysmans, Joris Karl, 179

Hythloday, Raphael, 14

Idelsohn, Abraham Z., 58

Imagism ( -ists), 145-74

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, 78

Imperial Memorial on Cotton Culture, 97

Impressionists, 76

Inada, Hagitaro, 74

India, 28, 38, 40, 46, 48, 49, 52, 66, 93,
232; art, 80-2, 217-25; American con-
ception of, 1 17; British in, 127-9;
dance and drama, 217-25; mission-
aries to, 127-9; religion in, 20-1, 176,
I93'4> 197-8, 217-25
Industrial Revolution, 38, 42
Institute of Pacific Relations, 142
Interior decoration, 74, 80
Irrigation, 1 09-11
Irwin, Eyles, 36
Isherwood, Christopher, 191-2
Islam, 16-8, 193, 198, 200, 208-9, 212-4

Jacquemart, , 73

James, Henry, 175
Jammes, Francis, 152
Japan(cse), 56, 68, 88, 114; American
attitude to, 118-9, 130-2; art, 43-6,
73-80; prints, 73-7, 160-1; voyages to,
260-7

Japanese Prints, 160
Jessup, Dr. Henry H., 120
Johnson, Samuel, 20, 32, 33, 52
Johnston, Charles, 178

Jones, , 91

Jones, E. Stanley, 128
Jones, Sir William, 36
“Jongleur,” 73
Joyce, James, 175, 1 86, 192
Joyners Co , case of, 239-40
Judaism, 193, 200, 203-4
Jung, Carl Gustav, 2, 53, 156

Kabala, 178-9
Kelley, Dr. R. B., 105
Kellogg, Claude, 137
Kellogg, W. K., 1 12
Khayyam, Omar, 42
Kin, Dr. Yamei, 91
Kipling, Rudyard, 34, 39, 49
Koechlin, Raymond, 74
Kummcl, Otto, 74

Lacquers, 72-5, 79
La Farge, John, 43-5
La Mcri, Mme., 217, 222
Lamott, Willis, 140
Landor, Walter Savage, 39, 40
Landscape gardening, Japanese, 79
Languages, discovery of, 28-9
Lao Tze, 200
Lao-tzu, 49, 173
La Rencontre imprevue, 67
Latourette, Kenneth, 134
Lawrence, D. H., 175-6, 186-8, 189
Legge, James, 136, 149
Lcgros, Alphonse, 73
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 23
Leonard, William Ellery, 162
Levi, Eliphas, 179
Lewis, Wyndham, 157
Library of Congress, 97
Lin Yutang, 34
Li-Po, 1 51, 159, 169
“Li Sao,” 168
Lisle, Leconte dc, 39, 150
Literature, 1-55, 94-103, 138-40, 145-92;
agricultural, 85, 86, 92, 94-103;

American, 32-3; Chinese, 148-61,
1 63-74; of chronology, 28; church,
139-41; contemporary, 140-1, 145-92;
Deistic, 19-21, 25-7; eighteenth-

century, 28-37; Hindu, 171-91, 222-4;
Japanese, 13 1, 148, 149, 180; medi-

273

eval, i -io, 13; mock-spy, 29-30;
oriental art, 222-4; Persian, 103; po-
etry, see Poetry; romantic, 150; nine-
teenth-century, 37-50; novel, 31-2;
popular, 50-1; Pnmitivist, 28; Renais-
sance, 28; scientific, 10-6; transcen-
dentalism in, 175-92; travel, 14-6;
utopian, 13-5
Liu Ch‘e, 165
Loti, Pierre, 34
Lovejoy, Arthur O., 21
Lowell, Amy, 154, 155, 157, 159-65.
172

Lowell, Percival, 43, 44
Lowes, John Livingston, 162
Lutoslawski, Wincenti, 195

MacLeish, Archibald, 97
McSpadden, I. Walker, 112
Mahler, Gustav, 157
Mallarme, Stephane, 180
Mandeville, Sir John, 7
Manet, Edouard, 73

Marana, , 29

Marblehead Historical Society, 254

Marlowe, Christopher, 3

Martin, W. A. P., 136

Masefield, John, 150

Mathers, Liddle MacGregor, 178-9

Matheson, George, 54

Maugham, Somerset, 192

May, Eugene, 114

Mazzochii, Virgilio, 63

Medicinal plants, 10 1-2

Melville, Herman, 39

Memmi, Lippo, 65

Mencius, 29, 165

Merrill, E. D., 102

Metcalf, Franklin D., 137-8

Meyer, Frank N., 86

Middle Ages, 1-10

Middle East, 64

Mille, Pierre, 34

Miller, Henry, 188

Milton, John, 218

Missionaries^ Christian, 120-44; China,
130-44; East Indies, 130; India, 128-9;
Japan, 130-1; medieval, 124-5, I37»
Near East, 120-7
Missionaries, Moslem, 193
Missionary Education Movement, 140
Mohammed (anism), 18, 26, 109, 21 1-4;

see also Islam
Monboddo, Lord, 28
Monet, Claude, 73, 76
Montesquieu, Charles de, 29
Moore, George, 178-9
Moore, Marianne, 172
Moore, Thomas, 39, 40
More, Henry, 177, 181
More, Paul Elmer, 49-50

More, Sir Thomas, 13, 14
Morris, William, 146, 150
Morrison, Samuel, 134
Morse, W. J., 88, 89
Mosle, , 74

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 67
Mughal miniatures, 81
Mung bean sprouts, 93-4
Munster, Sebastian, 12
Murphy, Arthur, 35
Murray, Gilbert, 202
Museums, 81-3, 96, 148, 160, 254, 260,
261

Music, 56-69, 157, 217-25; antiphony,
61-2; chimes, 63-4; Chinese, 224;
Greek, 56; Gregorian, 58-62, 221;
hand, 61; Hindu, 217-25; instruments,
56, 64-6; isometry, 66; Japanese, 224;
Javanese, 220; neumes, 60; Nginot,
60; notation, 59-60; opera, 67-8;
organ, 63-4; oriental, 35, 217-25;

Renaissance, 62-3; solmization, 60-1

Near East, 38, 71, 115-27, 183; Amer-
ican conception of, 1 1 5-7 ; Afghan-
istan, 106; Arabia, 108; Egypt, 63,
hi; Iran (Persia), 103-4, 106, 111;
Iraq, 103, 111; Mesopotamia, hi;

Tunisia, no; Turkey, 67, 116, 120-4
Near East College Assoc., 122-3
Near East Foundation, 123-4
Near East Relief, 123-4
Near East Service, 123
Neo-Humanism, 49-50
New Guinea, 96
Nikhilananda, Swami, 191
“Noble Fourfold Truth,” 204, 212
Noble Sage, 18, 21, 24
Noble Savage, 18, 24, 177
Noguchi, Yone, 159
Noh plays, 46, 180
North, Sir Thomas, 6, 9

Oceania, 13, 14, 18
Odo, Abbot, 61
O’Faolain, Sean, 186
Olden, , 74

Order of the Golden Dawn, 178
Ouseley, Sir William, 103

Painting, 44-5, 72-7, 160-1; Chinese, 72,
96; Hindu, 80-2; medieval, 65;
Japanese (prints), 73-7, 160-1
Patanjali, 178, 185, 191
Pavillion de Marsan, 74
Peace Pledge Union, 189
Percy, Bishop Thomas, 35
Persia (Iran), 103-4, i°6> hi
Philippines, 98, 114
Picasso, Pablo, 83
Pitoni, Giuseppe Ottavio, 63

Plant Introduction Service, U.S.D.A.,
85-6, 104, 107, 108, 113, 114
Plato, 13, 57, 182, 184, 195, 200, 203,
216, 227, 229-30
Po Ch‘u-I, 159, 168
Poe, Edgar Allan, 183
Poetry: Chinese, 36-7, 148-61, 163-74,
224-5; contemporary, 145-74; defini-
tion of, 166-7; frec-verse controversy,
162-3; French, 146-7, 150; Hindu,
224-5; Japanese, 36-7, 148, 149, 158-61,
167, 224-5; medieval, 64; romantic,
39-43, 1 46
Poll, John, 255-9
Pompadour, Mme. de, 71
Porcelains, 71-3

Pound, Ezra, 45, 146, 147, 150, 152-61,
164, 166, 172, 180
Powell, G. Harold, 99
Prabhavananda, Swami, 191
Pre-Raphaelites, 150
Primitivism ( -ists) , 18, 36
Prints, Japanese, 73-7, 160-1
Pryse, James M., 187-8, 192
Puccini, Giacomo, 67
Purchas, Samuel, 12
Putnam, Dr. Herbert, 97
Pycraft, W. P., 112-3

Quesnay, Francois, 22-3

Rabaud, Henry, 67
“Rabbi Ben Ezra,’* 42
Rachau, Henri, 76
Ramakrishna Mission, 191
Raswan, Carl R., 112
Reich wein, Adolf, 22
Religions, 175-6, 193-2 14; Christianity,
193-5, 198-200, 204-8, 214; Hindu-
ism, 176, 193-41 197-8, 217-25; Islam,
16-8, 193, 198, 200, 208-9, 212-4;
Judaism, 193, 200, 203-4; see also
Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism
Renaissance, 10-6, 62-3, 71
Rice, Victor A., 112
Richards, I. A , 165
Richardson, Samuel, 31
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 170
Robinson, T. Ralph, 114
Rockefeller Foundation, 124, 141-2
Rohmer, Sax, 34, 118
Rolland, Romain, 2
Romanticism, 37-8, 176
Ross, Dr. Denman W ., 81
Ross, John, 248
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 146
Rouart, Alexis, 74, 75
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 18
Royal Society of London, 10-1, 16
Rueckert, , 39

RumI, Jalalu’d Din, 229
Russell, George (A.E.), 2, 178, 185,
186, 188
Russia, 106-8

St. Augustine, 13
St. Basil, 62
St. Denis, Ruth, 222
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 45
St. Josaphat, 8-9, 208
Saint-Martin, Louis Claude, 179
Santa Gertrudis cattle, 105
Sargent, C. S., 85
Saud, Ibn, hi

Savigny, Friedrich Karl von, 1
Schmidt, Carl R., 112
Science: nineteenth-century, 38; Renais-
sance, 10-6

Schhemann, Heinrich, 125
Scollard, Clinton, 40
Scott, John, 36

Sculpture: Japanese, 74, 75; Hindu, 80-2
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 15, 16, 26
Shakespeare, William, 4, 167, 170
Shankar, Uday, 222
Sharaku, 77

Sheppard, Canon Dick, 189
Shih Chi-yien, 72
Shih You-kuang, 91
Shreve Papers, 254
Siberia, 102

Siddhartha, 199; see Buddha
Silk, 70-1, 80, 243-7
Sinnett, A. P., 178, 182
Slocum, Burl, 137
Smith, Arthur, 136
Smith, Eli, 121
Smithsonian Institution, 83
Smollett, Tobias, 31
Societies, scientific, 10-2
Socrates, 200, 203
Solon, M., 73
Southey, Robert, 39, 40
South Pacific, 82-3
Soy Bean Assoc., 89
Soy beans, 85, 86, 87-94
Spence, Lewis, 187

Stapf, , 102

Steiner, Rudolph, 186
Stephens, James, 150
Sterne, Laurence, 31
Stevens, Alfred, 73
Stevens, Wallace, 172
Storer, Edward, 146
Strabo, 1, 56

Strungk, Nicolaus Adam, 67
Sufis (Sufistic), 42, 49, 230
Sullivan, Arthur S., 119
Surrealism, 192
Swami, Shri Purohit, 184-5
Swift, Dean, 14, 20, 21

27<T

Symbolists (-ism), 146, 147, 150, 152,
154-5, 180

Tagore, Rabindranath, 148, 180

Tallis, Thomas, 63

Tancred, F. W., 146

Taoism, 200, 206-7

Taut, Bruno, 78

Temple, Sir William, 28

Textiles: designs, 72-3, 75; Hindu, 80;

silk, 70-1, 80, 243-7
Thackeray, Frank, 109
Thailand, 113, 114
Theosophy, 176-92
Thomas, Dylan, 186
Thoreau, Henry David, 39, 46-9
Tindal, Matthew, 25
Titsingh, Isaac, 73
Toulouse-Lautrec, 76-7
Transcendentalism (-ists), 46-9, 175-92,
230

Tu Fu, 159
Turnbull, J., 249
Tyndall, John, 177, 179

United China Relief, 143
Upanishads, 178, 182, 184-7, I92> 200»
218; Mandookya, 184, 185
Utamaro, 76

Valentino, Rudolph, 116

Van Dyck, Dr. Cornelius V. A., 120, 121

Van Eyck, , 65

Vedanta, 46, 190-4, 197, 200, 230
Vedanta movement, 193-4
Vedanta Society, 19 1
Vedas, 187, 200
Vergil, 184

Vcrhaeren, Emile, 152
Verlaine, Paul, 180
Vespucci’s Journals, 14
Vignier, Charles, 74

Villot, , 74

Vitry, Jacques de, 7

Voltaire, Francis de, 21-2, 25, 29, 30,
32

Vorticism, 157-60

Wadsworth, Edward, 157
Wagner, Richard, 68, 176, 177, 228
Wai Ngan-shou, 92
Wakai, 74

Waley, Arthur, 153, 164, 166, 168
Walker, E. H., 102
Walpole, Horace, 177
Wang-Wei, 154
Wareham bowl, 71
Wa-shau, Kwak, 99
Watreman, William, 12
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 41-2
Weber, Karl Maria von, 67, 68
Welden, Capt., 250

West China Border Research Society, 137

Wen-Tsai Chang, Dr., 93

Wentworth, Lady, 112, 113

Whistler, James McNeill, 73, 75

Whitehead, Paul, 35

Whitehouse, Dr. William I., 104

Whitman, Walt, 39, 162

Wilhelm, Richard, 156

Willaert, Adriaen, 62

William Bendy M.S., 255-9

Williams, E. T., 136

Williams, William Carlos, 172

Williams, S. Wells, 135

Wilson, E. H., 85

Wolff, Christian, 23

Woodville, Anthony (Earl Rivers), 5

Woolf, Virginia, 192

Wordsworth, William, 31, 51, 150, 151

Wotton, William, 28

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 78

Wu ChVchiin, 86

Wylie, Alexander, 136

Yeats, William Butler, 145, 148, 155,
172, 175-86, 188, 189
Yeats, Mrs. W. B., 181-2, 192
Yoga, 21, 48, 128, 176, 187-92, 227

Zebu, 104-5

Zimmer, Dr. Heinrich, 217
Zionism, 126-7
Zola, Emile, 74

276

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